Rhizobium-legume symbioses involve processes that are fundamental to all bacterial-host interactions. These include (a.) prokaryotic-eukaryotic recognition, (b.) interaction with the host defense mechanism, and (c.) bacterial and host differentiation processes (i.e. formation of nitrogen-fixing bacteroids and root nodules, respectively). As with animal pathogens, the invading rhizobia must adapt to the environment of the host to avoid destruction and persist in the host cell. These adaptations involve changes to cell surface polysaccharides, such as lipopolysaccharides (LPSs) and capsular polysaccharides. Rhizobium-legume symbiosis is an excellent model system to examine the molecular bases by which Gram-negative bacteria infect and survive within their host since both the bacteria and the host cells are viable throughout the infection process, and the LPSs from the invading bacteria can be isolated and characterized as a function of the infection process. The symbiosis system is particularly relevant to a number of intracellular pathogens that form chronic infections such as species of Brucella, Bartonella, Legionella, as well as Francisella. We have observed that unique structural features of Rhizobium LPSs are also present on LPSs from these pathogens. Our project focuses on the adaptation that rhizobia (R. etli and R. leguminosarum;symbionts of bean and pea, respectively) make to their LPSs as they encounter the stressful environment (e.g. changes in pH, osmolarity, oxygen tension, etc.) of the host cell. We hypothesize that unique structural features of rhizobial LPSs are essential for infection and persistence in the legume hosts. Unique structural features include a replacement of phosphate with galacturonic acid residues, oxidation of the lipid-A proximal glucosamine residue to 2-aminogluconate, and the presence of the very long chain fatty acid, 27- hydroxyoctacosaonic acid (27OHC28:0), on the lipid-A. Methylation and acetylation changes to the O-chain polysaccharide and an overall change in the hydrophobicity of the LPS and the whole rhizobial cell occur during symbiosis.
Our Specific Aims are: (1.) characterize the modifications to the O-chain polysaccharide of the LPS during symbiosis, (2.) create specific LPS mutants and characterize their structural and symbiotic phenotypes, and (3.) determine how a 27OHC28:0-lacking mutant, acpXL::kan, is able to activate an alternative mechanism within the host cell.
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