This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowReprints and Permissions
Right arrow Copyright Information
Right arrow Books from ASM Press
Right arrow MicrobeWorld
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Patrick, S.
Right arrow Articles by Stevenson, L.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Patrick, S.
Right arrow Articles by Stevenson, L.

 Previous Article  |  Next Article 

Infection and Immunity, September 1999, p. 4346-4351, Vol. 67, No. 9
0019-9567/99/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1999, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.

Detection of Intrastrain Antigenic Variation of Bacteroides fragilis Surface Polysaccharides by Monoclonal Antibody Labelling

Sheila Patrick,* Deirdre Gilpin, and Leanne Stevenson

Department of Microbiology and Immunobiology, School of Medicine, Queen's University of Belfast, Belfast BT12 6BN, United Kingdom

Received 16 February 1999/Returned for modification 30 March 1999/Accepted 15 June 1999

Bacteroides fragilis is a constituent of the normal resident microbiota of the human intestine and is the gram-negative obligately anaerobic bacterium most frequently isolated from clinical infection. Surface polysaccharides are implicated as potential virulence determinants. We present evidence of within strain immunochemical variation of surface polysaccharides in populations that are noncapsulate by light microscopy as determined by monoclonal antibody labelling. Expression of individual epitopes can be enriched from a population of an individual strain by use of immunomagnetic beads. Also, individual colonies in which either >94% or <7% of the bacteria carry an individual epitope retain this level of expression when subcultured into broth. In broth cultures where >94% of the bacteria carry a given epitope, there is no enrichment for other epitopes recognized by different polysaccharide-specific monoclonal antibodies. This intrastrain variation has important implications for the development of potential vaccines or immunodiagnostic tests.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of Microbiology and Immunobiology, School of Medicine, Queen's University of Belfast, Grosvenor Rd., Belfast BT12 6BN, United Kingdom. Phone: 44 (0)1232 240503. Fax: 44 (0)1232 439181. E-mail: s.patrick{at}qub.ac.uk.

Infection and Immunity, September 1999, p. 4346-4351, Vol. 67, No. 9
0019-9567/99/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1999, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.


This article has been cited by other articles:

  • Alhawi, M., Stewart, J., Erridge, C., Patrick, S., Poxton, I. R. (2009). Bacteroides fragilis signals through Toll-like receptor (TLR) 2 and not through TLR4. J Med Microbiol 58: 1015-1022 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Wexler, H. M. (2007). Bacteroides: the Good, the Bad, and the Nitty-Gritty. Clin. Microbiol. Rev. 20: 593-621 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Cerdeno-Tarraga, A. M., Patrick, S., Crossman, L. C., Blakely, G., Abratt, V., Lennard, N., Poxton, I., Duerden, B., Harris, B., Quail, M. A., Barron, A., Clark, L., Corton, C., Doggett, J., Holden, M. T. G., Larke, N., Line, A., Lord, A., Norbertczak, H., Ormond, D., Price, C., Rabbinowitsch, E., Woodward, J., Barrell, B., Parkhill, J. (2005). Extensive DNA Inversions in the B. fragilis Genome Control Variable Gene Expression. Science 307: 1463-1465 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Patrick, S., Parkhill, J., McCoy, L. J., Lennard, N., Larkin, M. J., Collins, M., Sczaniecka, M., Blakely, G. (2003). Multiple inverted DNA repeats of Bacteroides fragilis that control polysaccharide antigenic variation are similar to the hin region inverted repeats of Salmonella typhimurium. Microbiology 149: 915-924 [Abstract] [Full Text]  


Copyright © 2009 by the American Society for Microbiology.   For an alternate route to Journals.ASM.org, visit: http://intl-journals.asm.org | More Info»