Composition of Pseudomonas aeruginosa slime

1. The slime produced by eight strains of Pseudomonas aeruginosa on a number of different media was demonstrated to be qualitatively the same. Small quantitative differences may be occasioned by differences in the extraction procedure, the growth medium or the strain of organism used. 2. The slime was shown to be predominantly polysaccharide with some nucleic acid material and a small amount of protein. 3. The hydrolysed polysaccharide fraction consists mainly of glucose with smaller amounts of mannose. This accounts for some 50-60% of the total slime. In addition, there is some 5% of hyaluronic acid. The nucleic acid material represents approx. 20% of the total weight, and is composed of both RNA and DNA. 4. Minor components are protein, rhamnose and glucosamine, the protein being less than 5% of the total. 5. Hyaluronic acid is produced in greater quantities from nutrient broth than from chemically defined media, and is more firmly attached to the cells than the other components.     

Antigenic properties of Pseudomonas aeruginosa anatoxin and the protective action of antitoxic anti-Pseudomonas aeruginosa serum

The antigenic properties of P. aeruginosa toxoid, prepared with the use of casein culture medium, were not inferior to those of the toxoid obtained in Martin broth. In experiments on white mice antisera obtained by the immunization of rabbits with the toxoid prepared on the basis of casein culture medium showed sharply pronounced protective properties against P. aeruginosa homologous and heterologous strains, as well as toxigenic reference strain PA-103.     

Production and characterization of the slime polysaccharide of Pseudomonas aeruginosa

The slime polysaccharides produced by Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolated from a variety of human infections were investigated. Slime production in culture seemed optimal when adequate amounts of carbohydrate were present and under conditions of either high osmotic pressure or inadequate protein supply. The polysaccharides produced by the organisms were similar to each other, to the slime of Azotobacter vinelandii, and to seaweed alginic acids. They were composed of beta-1,4-linked d-mannuronic acid residues and variable amounts of its 5-epimer l-guluronic acid. All bacterial polymers contained o-acetyl groups which are absent in the alginates. The polysaccharides differed considerably in the ratio of mannuronic to guluronic acid content and in the number of o-acetyl groups. The particular composition of the slime was not found to be characteristic for the disease process from which the mucoid variants of P. aeruginosa were obtained.     

Characterization of lytic Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacteriophages via biological properties and genomic sequences

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is an important cause of infections, especially in patients with immunodeficiency or diabetes. Antibiotics are effective in preventing morbidity and mortality from Pseudomonas infection, but because of spreading multidrug-resistant bacterial strains, bacteriophages are being explored as an alternative therapy. Two newly purified broad host range Pseudomonas phages, named vB_Pae-Kakheti25 and vB_Pae-TbilisiM32, were characterized as candidates for use in phage therapy. Morphology, host range, growth properties, thermal stability, serology, genomic sequence, and virion composition are reported. When phages are used as bactericides, they are used in mixtures to overcome the development of resistance in the targeted bacterial population. These two phages are representative of diverse siphoviral and podoviral phage families, respectively, and hence have unrelated mechanisms of infection and no cross-antigenicity. Composing bactericidal phage mixtures with members of different phage families may decrease the incidence of developing resistance through a common mechanism.     

Formation and isolation of leucocidin from Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

A toxic substance, which destroyed leucocytes from man but was inactive against erythrocytes, was demonstrated in cultures of four out of 110 strains of Pseudomonas aeruginosa tested. The toxin, designated 'leucocidin', was cell-bound as a precursor toxin, exhibiting little or no toxicity. It was converted into toxin with maximum activity by various proteases including an endogenous elastase. The production of leucocidin was directly proportional to the number of bacteria and was not influenced by variations in media, iron concentration, pH or temperature. The best method for large-scale production of leucocidin was autolysis of washed bacteria.     

Physico-chemical and biological characteristics of Pseudomonas aeruginosa elastase

Elastase isolated from P. aeruginosa clinical strain hydrolyzes elastin, casein, hemoglobin, ovalbumin, gelatin, fibrin, collagen. The optimum pH ensuring the activity of the enzyme is 7.8-8.0. Elastase shows maximum stability at pH 6.6-9.0. Heating at 80 degrees C for 10 minutes results in its practically complete inactivation. Elastase is a highly radiosensitive enzyme. Chelating agents and zinc, cobalt, mercury ions suppress its activity. Sodium and ammonium chlorides selectively inhibit the elastolytic, but not proteolytic activity of the enzyme. Elastase shows pronounced dermonecrotic and keratolytic action.     

Synthesis and biological properties of thiazole-analogues of pyochelin,a siderophore of Pseudomonas aeruginosa

Pyochelin is a siderophore common to all strains of Pseudomonas aeruginosa utilized by this Gram-negative bacterium to acquire iron(III). FptA is the outer membrane transporter responsible of ferric-pyochelin uptake in P. aeruginosa. We describe in this Letter the synthesis and the biological properties (⁵⁵Fe uptake, binding to FptA) of several thiazole analogues of pyochelin. Among them we report in this Letter the two first pyochelin analogues able to bind FptA without promoting any iron uptake in P. aeruginosa.     

Minigenomes of the transposable phage D3112 of Pseudomonas aeruginosa and their properties

Two derivatives of D3112 prophage with large internal deletions (mini-D3112) have been constructed. Mini-D3112 delta H is about 3.5 kb long, containing the repressor c1 gene. Mini-D3112 delta E is about 12 kb long, contains the c1 gene, several structural genes and replication gene A. These mini-D3112 are unable to replicate. However, they could replicate and maturated in the presence of the helper D3112cts. Mini-D3112 mediate translocation of the gene argH from the chromosome into the R' plasmids, the translocated fragment being sandwiched between two mini-D3112 genomes.     

Isolation and study of the properties of a polyvalent corpuscular Pseudomonas aeruginosa vaccine. An evaluation of the biological properties of a polyvalent corpuscular Pseudomonas aeruginosa vaccine

P. aeruginosa killed polyvalent corpuscular vaccine, tested in a trial on 42 volunteer donors, is safe, low reactogenic and possesses pronounced immunogenicity, as the injection of the vaccine induced a rise in the titer of antibodies to P. aeruginosa up to 1:1280 in 95% of the immunized donors. To obtain specific antibodies in the blood plasma of the donors in an amount sufficient for the protective activity of the plasma becoming manifest, it is expedient to use the vaccination schedule providing for subcutaneous injections of 0.5, 0.5 and 1.0 ml at intervals of 7 days. Intense immunity thus induced in the donors lasts for 3-4 months. The hyperimmune plasma obtained from the donors has an antibody titer of at least 1:320 and shows a 90-100% protective effect in mice infected intraperitoneally with P. aeruginosa. The preliminary results of the clinical trial of anti-P. aeruginosa plasma have demonstrated its efficiency as a part of the complex treatment of patients with purulent septic complications of P. aeruginosa etiology.     

New selective agent for isolation of Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

Results of minimal inhibitory concentration tests with a diversity of bacterial strains showed that 9-chloro-9-(4-diethylaminophenyl)-10-phenylacridan (C-390) inhibited the growth of all microorganisms tested (other than Pseudomonas aeruginosa) at 25 microgram/ml or less, whereas MICs obtained for P. aeruginosa ranged from to to greater than 100 microgram/ml. Therefore, C-390 was evaluated as a potential selective agent for P. aeruginosa in pseudomonas agar F. Recovery tests were conducted on this medium with 53 strains o P. aeruginosa, and the results were compared to those obtained in similar tests on commercially available selective media, i.e., pseudomonas isolation agar and Pseudosel agar. The results of these comparisons indicated that pseudomonas agar F with C-390 was significantly less inhibitory than Pseudosel agar and pseudomonas isolation agar and more selective than pseudomonas isolation agar. The incorporation of C-390 in pseudomonas agar F also provided a medium that was both selective and differential. Preliminary evidence also suggested that C-390 may be added to other basal media with comparable results.     

The isolation of an aliphatic amidase from Pseudomonas aeruginosa

A pilot-scale process for the isolation of an aliphatic, amidase from Pseudomonas aeruginosa has been developed. A constitutive, partially irrepressible mutant was employed to give a high initial enzyme concentration. An existing laboratory isolation procedure has been scaled up and modified particularly by substitution of polyethylene glycol for ammonium sulfate precipitation as the first stage in the conversion of the fractionation to continuous operation. Full recovery of activity was achieved with the modification. The recovery of enzyme from a subsequent chromatographic stage was 85% and the maximum overall purification was 28-fold.     

Catabolite repression of Pseudomonas aeruginosa amidase: isolation of promotor mutants.

Among mutants of Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolated from fluoroacetamide medium were some which synthesized amidase at about 5% of the rate of the parent constitutive strain, PAC101. Seven fluoroacetamide-resistant mutants with low amidase activity gave rise to secondary mutant strains on succinate+butyramide plates. One appeared to be an 'up-promotor' mutant and synthesized amidase at a high rate. This mutant, PAC433, was not stimulated by cyclic-AMP and was much less sensitive to catabolite repression by succinate. The mutation conferring resistance to catabolite repression was cotransduced at a frequency of 96% (26/27) with the amidase genes amiR, amiE. Five other revertants had catabolite repression-resistance mutations which were linked to the amidase genes and these also were probably promotor mutants. One strain had a mutation conferring resistance to catabolite repression which was unlinked to the amidase genes.