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Infect Immun, August 1998, p. 3719-3726, Vol. 66, No. 8
0019-9567/98/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1998, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.

Complex Serology and Immune Response of Mice to Variant High-Molecular-Weight O Polysaccharides Isolated from Pseudomonas aeruginosa Serogroup O2 Strains

Kazue Hatano and Gerald B. Pier*

Channing Laboratory, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115-5804

Received 17 February 1998/Returned for modification 7 April 1998/Accepted 24 May 1998

The O antigen of the Pseudomonas aeruginosa lipopolysaccharide is the optimal target for protective antibodies, but the unusual and complex nature of their sugar substituents has made it difficult to define the range of these structures needed in an effective vaccine. Most clinical isolates of P. aeruginosa can be classified into 10 O-antigen serogroups, but slight chemical differences among O polysaccharides within a serogroup give rise to subtype epitopes. These epitopes could impact the reactivity of O-antigen-specific antibodies, as well as the susceptibility of a target strain to protective, opsonic antibodies. To define parameters of serogroup and subtype-epitope immunogenicity, antigenicity, and surface expression on P. aeruginosa cells, we prepared high-molecular-weight O-polysaccharide vaccines from strains of P. aeruginosa serogroup O2, for which eight structurally variant O antigens expressing six defined subtype epitopes (O2a to O2f) have been identified. A complex pattern of immune responses to these antigens was observed following vaccination of mice. The high-molecular-weight O polysaccharides were generally more immunogenic at low doses (1 and 10 µg) than at a high dose (50 µg) and usually elicited antibodies that opsonized the homologous strain for phagocytic killing. Some of the individual polysaccharides elicited cross-opsonic antibodies to a variable number of strains that express all of the defined serogroup O2 subtype epitopes. Combination into one vaccine of two antigens that individually elicited cross-reactive opsonic antibodies to most members of the O2 serogroup inhibited, instead of enhanced, the production of antibodies broadly reactive with most serogroup O2 subtype strains. Thus, immune responses to P. aeruginosa O antigens may be restricted to a limited range of epitopes on structurally complex O antigens, and combining multiple related antigens into a single vaccine formulation may inhibit the production of those antibodies best able to protect against most P. aeruginosa strains within a given O-antigen serogroup.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Channing Laboratory, 181 Longwood Ave., Boston, MA 02115-5804. Phone: (617) 525-2269. Fax: (617) 731-1541. E-mail: gpier{at}channing.harvard.edu.

Infect Immun, August 1998, p. 3719-3726, Vol. 66, No. 8
0019-9567/98/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1998, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.


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Copyright © 1998 by the American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.