Genetics and evolution of Yersinia pseudotuberculosis O-specific polysaccharides: a novel pattern of O-antigen diversity.

ABSTRACT: O-antigen polysaccharide is a major immunogenic feature of the lipopolysaccharide of Gram-negative bacteria, and most species produce a large variety of forms that differ substantially from one another. There are 18 known O-antigen forms in the Yersinia pseudotuberculosis complex, which are typical in being composed of multiple copies of a short oligosaccharide called an O unit. The O-antigen gene clusters are located between the hemH and gsk genes, and are atypical as 15 of them are closely related, each having one of five downstream gene modules for alternative main-chain synthesis, and one of seven upstream modules for alternative side-branch sugar synthesis. As a result, many of the genes are in more than one gene cluster. The gene order in each module is such that, in general, the ear

SUBMITTER: Kenyon JJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5399914 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature