Letter abstract
Nature Chemical Biology 2, 153 - 157 (2006)
Published online: 5 February 2006 | doi:10.1038/nchembio767
Analyzing the dynamic bacterial glycome with a lectin microarray approach
Ku-Lung Hsu1, Kanoelani T Pilobello1 & Lara K Mahal2
Glycosylation of bacterial cell surfaces is emerging as a critical factor in symbiosis, pathogenesis, cell-cell interactions and immune evasion1, 2, 3. The lack of high-throughput analytical tools to examine bacterial glycans has been a major obstacle to the field and has hindered closer examination of the dynamics of carbohydrate variation. We have recently developed a lectin microarray for the analysis of glycoproteins4. Herein we present a rapid analytical system based on this technology for the examination of bacterial glycans. The glycosylation pattern observed distinguishes closely related Escherichia coli strains from one another, providing a facile means of fingerprinting bacteria. In addition, dynamic alterations in the carbohydrate coat of a pathogenic E. coli strain are readily observed. The fast evaluation of real-time alterations in surface-carbohydrate epitopes allows examination of the dynamic role of bacterial sugars in response to external stimuli such as the immune system.
- Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Center for Systems and Synthetic Biology, Institute for Cellular and Molecular Biology, University of Texas at Austin, 1 University Station, A5300, Austin, Texas 78712-0265.
- Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Center for Systems and Synthetic Biology, Institute for Cellular and Molecular Biology, University of Texas at Austin, 1 University Station, A5300, Austin, Texas 78712-0265.
Correspondence to: Lara K Mahal2 e-mail: lmahal@cm.utexas.edu
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