Structural characterization of polysaccharides expressed by Burkholderia oklahomensis E0147

Abstract Burkholderia oklahomensis E0147 is a US isolated bacterium believed to express a similar O-antigen to type A structure of the highly pathogenic species, Burkholderia pseudomallei . Both species are genetically closely related. Lipopolysaccharide was collected from E0147 and structurally characterized to test this hypothesis. Glycosyl composition and linkage analyses in conjunction with 1D and 2D 1 H and 13 C NMR spectroscopy showed that the O-antigen was a repeating disaccharide with the following structure: [3)-β- d -Glc p -(1→3)-2OAc-α- l -6dTal p -(1→] n NMR spectroscopy also revealed the presence of a co-extracted exopolysaccharide previously described in B. pseudomallei , with the structure: [3)-2OAc-β- d -Galp-(1→4)-α- d -Galp-(1→3)-β- d -Galp-(1→5)-β- d -Kdop-(2→] n .