The involvement of O-antigen polysaccharide in lipopolysaccharide in macrophage activation.

Bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS), which is generally considered to be an endotoxin, is the major constituent of the outer membrane of Gram-negative bacteria. The structure of LPS consists of three regions; lipid A, core oligosaccharide and O-antigen polysaccharide (O-PS). The structures of lipid A and core oligosaccharide are highly conserved among bacterial genera, but that of O-PS varies and differs in common bacterial species. Although studies of the biological activities of LPS have mainly focused on the lipid A moiety, a recent study gradually clarified the importance of O-PS to elicit the biological activities. In this review, we summarize previous studies on the correlation between the structure of O-PS and the biological activity of LPS, and discuss the possibility of innovative drug development using modified and synthetic LPS.

Citation

Misato Shimada, Takeshi Kadowaki, Yoshie Taniguchi, Hiroyuki Inagawa, Kathuichiro Okazaki, Gen-Ichiro Soma. The involvement of O-antigen polysaccharide in lipopolysaccharide in macrophage activation. Anticancer research. 2012 Jun;32(6):2337-41

Mesh Tags

Substances

PMID: 22641671

search → result