New Structures of the O-Specific Polysaccharides of Proteus. 2. Polysaccharides Containing O-Acetyl Groups

A. N. Kondakova¹, F. V. Toukach¹, S. N. Senchenkova¹, N. P. Arbatsky¹, A. S. Shashkov¹, Y. A. Knirel^1*, K. Zych², A. Torzewska², K. Kolodziejska², A. Rozalski², and Z. Sidorczyk²

¹Zelinsky Institute of Organic Chemistry, Russian Academy of Sciences, Leninskii pr. 47, Moscow, 119991 Russia; fax: (095) 135-5328; E-mail: knirel@ioc.ac.ru

²Institute of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Lodz, Banacha 12/16, 90-237 Lodz, Poland; fax: (48) 42-6784932; E-mail: zsidor@biol.uni.lodz.pl

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed.

Received July 19, 2001

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Structures of five new O-specific polysaccharides of Proteus bacteria were established. Four of them, Proteus penneri 4 (O72), Proteus vulgaris 63/57 (O37), Proteus mirabilis TG 277 (O69), and Proteus penneri 20 (O17), contain O-acetyl groups in non-stoichiometric quantities, and the polysaccharide of P. penneri 1 is structurally related to that of P. penneri 4. The structures were elucidated using NMR spectroscopy, including one-dimensional ¹H- and ¹³C-NMR spectroscopy, two-dimensional ¹H,¹H correlation (COSY, TOCSY), H-detected ¹H,¹³C heteronuclear multiple-quantum coherence (HMQC), heteronuclear multiple-bond correlation (HMBC), and nuclear Overhauser effect spectroscopy (NOESY or ROESY), along with chemical methods. The structural data obtained are useful as the chemical basis for the creation of the classification scheme for Proteus strains.

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KEY WORDS: lipopolysaccharide, O-antigen, bacterial polysaccharide, structure, O-acetyl groups, Proteus

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