Abstract
The frequency of P. penneri isolation from hospital patients, mostly from urine and wounds, keeps on growing, and numerous isolates are multi-drug resistant. P. penneri rods produce lipopolysaccharide (LPS), which may lead to the septic shock. Until now, O-specific polysaccharide has been the best structurally and serologically characterized region of P. penneri LPS. It is worth having an insight into the serological specificity of both poly- and oligosaccharide parts of P. penneri LPS. The P. penneri core region is less structurally diverse than OPS, but still, among other enterobacterial LPS core regions, it is characterized by structural variability. In the present study, the serological reactivity of 25 P. penneri LPS core regions was analyzed by ELISA, passive immunohemolysis and Western blot technique using five polyclonal P. penneri antisera after or without their adsorption with the respective LPSs. The results allowed the assignment of the tested strains to five new core serotypes, which together with published serological studies led to the creation of the first serotyping scheme based on LPS core reactivities of 35 P. penneri and three P. mirabilis strains. Together with the O types scheme, it will facilitate assigning Proteus LPSs of clinical isolates into appropriate O and R serotypes.
Highlights
Proteus penneri, previously designated as P. vulgaris biogroup 1, was identified and named in 1982 by Hickman et al [1] on the basis of low DNA relatedness to DNA of the biogroups 2 and 3 representatives and its phenotypic differences
Sera specific to appropriate P. penneri strains were tested with a set of 40 P. penneri LPSs and the core region serospecificity for the majority of those antigens was determined [16, 17, 19, 20]
Each serum was adsorbed with a single cross-reacting antigen and tested again in passive immunohemolysis (PIH) or in enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) (P. penneri 17 antiserum) with all LPSs reacting with the serum to exclude further serological differences within the groups
Summary
Previously designated as P. vulgaris biogroup 1, was identified and named in 1982 by Hickman et al [1] on the basis of low DNA relatedness to DNA of the biogroups 2 and 3 representatives and its phenotypic differences. To have an insight into the serological specificity of both polysaccharide and oligosaccharide parts of P. penneri LPS, it is worth creating an additional scheme classifying P. penneri LPSs into serotypes of their core regions. P. penneri 2, 11, 12, 16, 17, 19, 24, 26, 28, 31, 35, 36, 38, 60, 63, 75, 100, 103, 107, 112, 114, 115 and P. vulgaris 55/57 LPSs have been previously obtained by the Westphal and Jann method [14], and P. penneri 13 and 124 LPSs, by the phenol/chloroform/petroleum ether method of Galanos (1969) [15] These LPSs were from the collection of the Department of General Microbiology.
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