Infectious Neisseria gonorrhoeae make relatively large lipooligosaccharides (LOS) that structurally resemble human glycosphingolipids. MS11mkC is an LOS variant of N. gonorrhoeae strain MS11 which was isolated from men at the onset of dysuria (Schneider, H., Griffiss, J. M., Boslego, J. W., Hitchcock, P. J., Zahos, K. M., and Apicella, M. A. (1991) J. Exp. Med. 174, 1601-1605). Delayed extraction matrix-assisted laser desorption and ionization and electrospray ionization mass spectrometry of O-deacylated MS11mkC LOS produced ions consistent with known LOS which have lacto-N-neotetraose (Gal β1→4 GlcNAc β1→3 Gal β1→4 Glc; paraglobosyl; monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) 1B2(+) and 06B4(+)) and GalNAc→lacto-N-neotetraose (gangliosyl; mAb 1-1-M+) oligosaccharides. Ion peaks for a larger LOS which also bound mAb 1B2 indicated the addition of a hexose (+162 Da) to gangliosyl LOS or the addition of a hexose and a N-acetylhexosamine (+365 Da) to paraglobosyl LOS. Analysis of HF-treated and O-deacylated LOS revealed three major components present in a phosphoethanolamine (PEA)0 and a PEA1 series. Digestion of MS11mkC LOS by β-N-acetylhexosaminidase and β-galactosidase, alone and sequentially, combined with mAb binding patterns, confirmed the presence of a nonreducing terminal repeating LacNAc ((Gal β1→4 GlcNAc)2) on the largest LOS, rather than a parallel oligosaccharide structure.
Neisseria, Gonorrhoeae, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, lipooligosaccharides, N-acetyllactosamine
NCBI PubMed ID: 9873046Journal NLM ID: 2985121RPublisher: Baltimore, MD: American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Correspondence: cjohn@vacom.ucsf.edu.net
Institutions: Centre for Immunochemistry and the Department of Laboratory Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, California 94121 and the Department of Bacterial Diseases, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Washington, D. C. 20307.
Methods: ESI-MS, MALDI-MS
Found