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Production of Slime Polysaccharides by Shigella dysenteriae Type 1
Author(s) -
Qadri Firdausi,
Haque Md. Azizul,
Hossain Anwar,
Albert Manuel John
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
microbiology and immunology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.664
H-Index - 70
eISSN - 1348-0421
pISSN - 0385-5600
DOI - 10.1111/j.1348-0421.1994.tb01738.x
Subject(s) - shigella dysenteriae , biology , shigella , microbiology and biotechnology , polysaccharide , type (biology) , bacteria , ecology , escherichia coli , genetics , biochemistry , gene , salmonella
Electron microscopy of ruthenium red‐stained ultrathin section of strains of Shigella dysenteriae type 1 grown in the Casamino Acids‐yeast extract broth medium showed the presence of an extracellular slime layer. The slime appeared as a dense sheath covering bacteria. The presence of slime promoted hemagglutinating activity of the bacteria. The slime polysaccharide (SPS) isolated from the cell‐free culture supernatant or the bacterial surface was less than 162,000 daltons in size and immunochemically similar. The SPS showed cross‐reaction with lipopolysaccharide (LPS) antigen in immunological tests; however, it also appeared to be different from LPS since it did not contain 2‐keto‐3‐deoxyoctonate, a core sugar of LPS. A different pattern of separation from LPS was also observed by silver staining of SDS‐polyacrylamide gels. From these data it appeared that either LPS and SPS are contaminated with each other or that SPS is the polysaccharide portion of LPS.