Morphological heterogeneity among Salmonella lipopolysaccharide chemotypes in silver-stained polyacrylamide gels

TLDR

The study used silver‑stained polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis of whole‑cell lysates, with proteinase K digestion to preferentially stain LPS, to analyze morphological heterogeneity among Salmonella LPS chemotypes. Distinct LPS chemotypes produced unique silver‑stained profiles in both purified LPS and whole‑cell lysates, indicating that biochemical variation can be detected and used to preliminarily identify chemotypes without purification.

Abstract

The morphological heterogeneity of lipopolysaccharides (LPSs) among salmonella mutants with different LPS chemotypes was analyzed in silver-stained polyacrylamide gels. The biochemical differences in the LPS chemotypes were reflected in the unique profiles of the purified LPSs. The LPS profiles in the whole-cell lysates were also unique for each chemotype. (Whole-cell lysates were assessed by a method which preferentially silver stains LPS and by a proteinase K digest of whole-cell lysates. The silver-stained LPS profiles of proteinase K-digested lysates were similar to the homologous purified LPS and could be used to preliminarily characterize the LPS chemotype before purification.) ) In summary, biochemical variation in LPS composition can be detected in silver-stained polyacrylamide gels.