Molecular and physical characterization of Burkholderia mallei O antigens

Burkholderia mallei lipopolysaccharide (LPS) has been previously shown to cross-react with polyclonal antibodies raised against B. pseudomallei LPS; however, we observed that B. mallei LPS does not react with a monoclonal antibody (Pp-PS-W) specific for B. pseudomallei 0 polysaccharide, (O-PS). In this study, we identified the O-PS biosynthetic gene cluster from B. mallei ATCC 23344 and subsequently characterized the molecular structure of the O-PS produced by this organism.