Taxonomic group: bacteria / Proteobacteria
(Phylum: Proteobacteria)
Host organism: Homo sapiens
Associated disease: cholera [ICD11:
1A00 
, ICD11:
XN7N1 ]
NCBI PubMed ID: 23028317Publication DOI: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1002917Journal NLM ID: 101238921Publisher: San Francisco, CA: Public Library of Science
Correspondence: andrew.camilli
tufts.edu
Institutions: Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Department of Molecular Biology and Microbiology, Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
The Vibrio cholerae lipopolysaccharide O1 antigen is a major target of bacteriophages and the human immune system and is of critical importance for vaccine design. We used an O1-specific lytic bacteriophage as a tool to probe the capacity of V. cholerae to alter its O1 antigen and identified a novel mechanism by which this organism can modulate O antigen expression and exhibit intra-strain heterogeneity. We identified two phase variable genes required for O1 antigen biosynthesis, manA and wbeL. manA resides outside of the previously recognized O1 antigen biosynthetic locus, and encodes for a phosphomannose isomerase critical for the initial step in O1 antigen biosynthesis. We determined that manA and wbeL phase variants are attenuated for virulence, providing functional evidence to further support the critical role of the O1 antigen for infectivity. We provide the first report of phase variation modulating O1 antigen expression in V. cholerae, and show that the maintenance of these phase variable loci is an important means by which this facultative pathogen can generate the diverse subpopulations of cells needed for infecting the host intestinal tract and for escaping predation by an O1-specific phage.
virulence, O-antigen, Vibrio cholerae O1, vaccine, bacteriophage
Structure type: polymer chemical repeating unit ; n=12-18
Location inside paper: p.1, fig. S1
Compound class: O-polysaccharide, O-antigen
Methods: PCR, SDS-PAGE, genetic methods
Biosynthesis and genetic data: genetic data
Comments, role: part of the OPS from the Vibrio cholerae O1 serotype Ogawa (see, RR: 28623),and Vibrio cholerae O1 serotype Inaba.
Related record ID(s): 28623
NCBI Taxonomy refs (TaxIDs): 127906
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There is only one chemically distinct structure:
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