The O:34-antigen lipopolysaccharide as an adhesin inAeromonas hydrophila

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Abstract
We compared the ability of different Aeromonas hydrophila strains from serogroup O:34 grown at different temperatures to adhere to Hep-2 cells. We found a high level of adhesion when the strains were grown at 20 °C but not when they were grown at 37 °C. We previously described that these strains were able to form the O-antigen lipopolysaccharide when they grow at low temperature but not at high temperature. We also obtained by transposon mutagenesis mutants only devoid of the O-antigen lipopolysaccharide (rfb mutants), and they showed significantly lower levels of adhesion to Hep-2 cells than the smooth strains. All these results prompted us to conclude that the O-antigen LPS, in these strains, is an important adhesin.