Adaptive Synthesis of a Rough Lipopolysaccharide in Geobacter sulfurreducens for Metal Reduction and Detoxification.

ABSTRACT: The ability of some metal-reducing bacteria to produce a rough (no O-antigen) lipopolysaccharide (LPS) could facilitate surface interactions with minerals and metal reduction. Consistent with this, the laboratory model metal reducer Geobacter sulfurreducens PCA produced two rough LPS isoforms (with or without a terminal methyl-quinovosamine sugar) when growing with the soluble electron acceptor fumarate but expressed only the shorter and more hydrophilic variant when reducing iron oxides. We reconstructed from genomic data conserved pathways for the synthesis of the rough LPS and generated heptosyltransferase mutants with partial (ΔrfaQ) or complete (ΔrfaC) truncations in the core oligosaccharide. The stepwise removal of the LPS core sugars reduced the hydrophilicity of the c

SUBMITTER: Clark MM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8478458 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature