Structural investigation on the lipooligosaccharide fraction of psychrophilic Pseudoalteromonas haloplanktis TAC 125 bacterium

The core structure of the cell-wall lipooligosaccharide (LOS) fraction of an Antarctic Gram-negative bacterium, Pseudoalteromonas haloplanktis TAC 125 strain, was determined to be deacetylated alditols. These were obtained from native LOS fraction by O-deacylation, dephosphorylation, reduction and finally N-deacylation. Two novel structures were detected, the more highly represented molecule consisting of the following hexasaccharide chain: alpha -D-ManpNH(2)-(1-->3)-beta -D-Galp-(1-->4)-alpha -L-glycero-D-manno-Hepp-(1-->5)-alpha -D-Kdo(2-->6)-beta -D-GlcpNH(2)-(1-->6)-D-GlcNH(2)(ol) while the corresponding pentasaccharide, lacking the ManpNH(2) residue, was less abundant. To the best of our knowledge, the structural investigation presented here, mainly performed by NMR and MS methods, is the first report of the lipopolysaccharide fraction of a psychrophilic bacterium.