Klebsiella bacteriophage

K62 (23), have been elucidated, mostly using a combination of methylation analysis. Smith degradation, partial hydrolysis with acid, and H n.m.r. spectroscopy. In some cases e.g. Klebsiella serotypes K13, K25, and K37), depolymerization of the polysaccharides was accomplished by glycanase activities associated with particles of Klebsiella bacteriophages. Serological cross-reactions also revealed similarities in the structures of certain capsular polysaccharides for example, the polysaccharide from Klebsiella serotype K13 (18) cross-reacted with that from Klebsiella serotype K2, which has an identical structure except for the absence of the terminal 3,4-0-(l-carboxyethylidene)-P-D-galactopyranosyl residue. 

For example, the native, capsular polysaccharide from Klebsiella aero-genes type K54 incubated with a bacteriophage-induced enzyme, gave an... 

The O-antigen polysaccharides of Klebsiella serotype 05 and Escherichia coli 08 were prepared by mild hydrolysis of the lipopolysaccharides. A bacteriophage enzyme hydrolyzed both polymers,3150 giving the trisaccharide /3-D-Man-(l - 2)-a-D-Man-(l -> 2)-D-Man. 

To overcome the limitations of chemical degradations such as low yields of oligosaccharides, low specificity and complicating side reactions, the use of specific enzymes offers great potential in structural polysaccharide chemistry. Probably the most successful application of enzymes has been the use of bacteriophage endoglycanases (Rieger-Hug and Stirm, 1981) for the structural analysis of Klebsiella polysaccharides (Dutton et al., 1981 Dutton and Merrifield, 1982). 

A depolymerase active towards Klebsiella type 11 capsular polysaccharide was induced by the action of bacteriophage II on a Klebsiella species. The enzyme catalysed the hydrolyses of j8-D-glucopyranuronosyl-(l -> 3)-D-glucuronic... 

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