%0 Journal Article %A Bhagwat, Arvind A. %A Jun, Won %A Liu, Liu %A Kannan, Porteen %A Dharne, Mahesh %A Pheh, Benedict %A Tall, Ben D. %A Kothary, Mahendra H. %A Gross, Kenneth C. %A Angle, Scott %A Meng, Jianghong %A Smith, Allen %T Osmoregulated periplasmic glucans of Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium are required for optimal virulence in mice %D 2009 %J Microbiology, %V 155 %N 1 %P 229-237 %@ 1465-2080 %R https://doi.org/10.1099/mic.0.023747-0 %K OPG, osmoregulated periplasmic glucan %I Microbiology Society, %X We purified osmoregulated periplasmic glucans (OPGs) from Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium and found them to be composed of 100 % glucose with 2-linked glucose as the most abundant residue, with terminal glucose, 2,3-linked and 2,6-linked glucose also present in high quantities. The two structural genes for OPG biosynthesis, opgG and opgH, form a bicistronic operon, and insertion of a kanamycin resistance gene cassette into this operon resulted in a strain devoid of OPGs. The opgGH mutant strain was impaired in motility and growth under low osmolarity conditions. The opgGH mutation also resulted in a 2 log increase in the LD50 in mice compared to the wild-type strain SL1344. Inability to synthesize OPGs had no significant impact on the organism's lipopolysaccharide pattern or its ability to survive antimicrobial peptides-, detergent-, pH- and nutrient-stress conditions. We observed that the opgGH-defective strain respired at a reduced rate under acidic growth conditions (pH 5.0) and had lower ATP levels compared to the wild-type strain. These data indicate that OPGs of S. Typhimurium contribute towards mouse virulence as well as growth and motility under low osmolarity growth conditions. %U https://www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/journal/micro/10.1099/mic.0.023747-0