Haemophilus ducreyiproduces rough lipopolysaccharide

Abstract

Samples of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) from 17 strains of Haemophilus ducreyi were analysed using the techniques of SDS‐polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and silver staining. All 17 LPS samples produced low molecular weight bands on silver‐stained gels indicating that they lacked O‐antigenic carbohydrate side chains. Some degree of inter‐strain heterogeneity in the LPS banding patterns was also observed.

Effect of cultural conditions on the protein and lipopolysaccharide profiles of Haemophilus ducreyi analysed by SDS-PAGE

“…The LPS profiles of the organisms were determined as described previously [6]. In brief, organisms solubilised in SDS were digested with proteinase K, and after electrophoresis, gels were stained using the method of Hitchcock and Brown [101.…”

“…In contrast, the LPS patterns exhibited marked variations under the different cultural conditions. understanding the immunochemistry and pathogenicity of this bacterium [3][4][5][6]. However, there have been no reports on the possible and potentially important influence that different cultural conditions might have on the protein and LPS patterns of H. ducreyi as demonstrated by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE).…”

Identification of surface-exposed proteinsHaemophilus ducreyi

“…4, 6, 8 and 47 were isolated in the Gambia [7], strain 35000 was isolated in Canada [6] and strain M was isolated in Munich. The organisms were cultured on Mueller-Hinton agar (BBL) containing 5% heat-denatured horse blood (Wellcome).…”

“…For this reason, recent research on the biology of H. ducreyi has centred on the structure of its cell wall. Reports from several laboratories have described the preliminary characterisation of both outer membrane proteins [4,5] and lipopolysaccharide [6,7] from H. ducreyi. To extend this approach we have undertaken a study of the proteins exposed at the cell surface of H. ducreyi using the technique of protein iodination.…”