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Infection and Immunity, July 1999, p. 3525-3532, Vol. 67, No. 7
0019-9567/99/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1999, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.

Analysis of a Capsular Polysaccharide Biosynthesis Locus of Bacteroides fragilis

Laurie E. Comstock,1,* Michael J. Coyne,1 Arthur O. Tzianabos,1 Annalisa Pantosti,2 Andrew B. Onderdonk,1,3 and Dennis L. Kasper1,4

Channing Laboratory, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital,1 Department of Pathology,3 and Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics,4 Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, and Laboratory of Bacteriology and Medical Mycology, Istituto Superiore di Sanita, 00161 Rome, Italy2

Received 9 December 1998/Returned for modification 23 February 1999/Accepted 6 April 1999

A major clinical manifestation of infection with Bacteroides fragilis is the formation of intra-abdominal abscesses, which are induced by the capsular polysaccharides of this organism. Transposon mutagenesis was used to locate genes involved in the synthesis of capsular polysaccharides. A 24,454-bp region was sequenced and found to contain a 15,379-bp locus (designated wcf) with 16 open reading frames (ORFs) encoding products similar to those encoded by genes of other bacterial polysaccharide biosynthesis loci. Four genes encode products that are similar to enzymes involved in nucleotide sugar biosynthesis. Seven genes encode products that are similar to sugar transferases. Two gene products are similar to O-acetyltransferases, and two products are probably involved in polysaccharide transport and polymerization. The product of one ORF, WcfH, is similar to a set of deacetylases of the NodB family. Deletion mutants demonstrated that the wcf locus is necessary for the synthesis of polysaccharide B, one of the two capsular polysaccharides of B. fragilis 9343. The virulence of the polysaccharide B-deficient mutant was comparable to that of the wild type in terms of its ability to induce abscesses in a rat model of intra-abdominal infection.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Channing Laboratory, 181 Longwood Ave., Boston, MA 02115. Phone: (617) 525-2679. Fax: (617) 731-1541. E-mail: lcomstock{at}channing.harvard.edu.

Infection and Immunity, July 1999, p. 3525-3532, Vol. 67, No. 7
0019-9567/99/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1999, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.


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