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Infection and Immunity, December 1998, p. 5607-5612, Vol. 66, No. 12
0019-9567/98/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1998, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.

The Lipopolysaccharide of Bordetella bronchiseptica Acts as a Protective Shield against Antimicrobial Peptides

Andreas Banemann, Heike Deppisch, and Roy Gross*

Lehrstuhl für Mikrobiologie, Theodor-Boveri-Institut, Biozentrum der Universität Würzburg, D-97074 Würzburg, Germany

Received 3 April 1998/Returned for modification 31 July 1998/Accepted 28 September 1998

Resistance profiles of the two Bordetella species B. bronchiseptica and B. pertussis against various antimicrobial peptides were determined in liquid survival and agar diffusion assays. B. bronchiseptica exhibited significantly higher resistance against all tested peptides than B. pertussis. The most powerful agents acting on B. bronchiseptica were, in the order of their killing efficiencies, cecropin P > cecropin B > magainin-II-amide > protamine > melittin. Interestingly, for B. bronchiseptica, the resistance level was significantly affected by phase variation, as a bvgS deletion derivative showed an increased sensitivity to these peptides. Tn5-induced protamine-sensitive B. bronchiseptica mutants, which were found to be very susceptible to most of the cationic peptides, were isolated. In two of these mutants, the genetic loci inactivated by transposon insertion were identified as containing genes highly homologous to the wlbA and wlbL genes of B. pertussis that are involved in the biosynthesis of lipopolysaccharide (LPS). In agreement with this finding, the two peptide-sensitive mutants revealed structural changes in the LPS, resulting in the loss of the O-specific side chains and the prevalence of the LPS core structure. This demonstrates that LPS plays a major role in the resistance of B. bronchiseptica against the action of antimicrobial peptides and suggests that B. pertussis is much more susceptible to these peptides due to the lack of the highly charged O-specific sugar side chains.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Lehrstuhl für Mikrobiologie, Biozentrum, Am Hubland, D-97074 Würzburg, Germany. Phone: (931) 888 4403. Fax: (931) 888 4402. E-mail: roy{at}biozentrum.uni-wuerzburg.de.

Infection and Immunity, December 1998, p. 5607-5612, Vol. 66, No. 12
0019-9567/98/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1998, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.


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