Purification and Visualization of Lipopolysaccharide from Gram-negative Bacteria by Hot Aqueous-phenol Extraction

Summary

We describe a modified hot aqueous-phenol extraction method for purifying lipopolysaccharide (LPS) from Gram-negative bacteria. Once extracted, the LPS can be subsequently analyzed by SDS-PAGE and visualized by direct staining or Western immunoblot.

Abstract

Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) is a major component of Gram-negative bacterial outer membranes. It is a tripartite molecule consisting of lipid A, which is embedded in the outer membrane, a core oligosaccharide and repeating O-antigen units that extend outward from the surface of the cell^{1, 2}. LPS is an immunodominant molecule that is important for the virulence and pathogenesis of many bacterial species, including Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Salmonella species, and Escherichia coli^3-5, and differences in LPS O-antigen composition form the basis for serotyping of strains. LPS is involved in attachment to host cells at the initiation of infection and provides protection from complement-mediated killing; strains that lack LPS can be attenuated for virulence^6-8. For these reasons, it is important to visualize LPS, particularly from clinical isolates. Visualizing LPS banding patterns and recognition by specific antibodies can be useful tools to identify strain lineages and to characterize various mutants.

In this report, we describe a hot aqueous-phenol method for the isolation and purification of LPS from Gram-negative bacterial cells. This protocol allows for the extraction of LPS away from nucleic acids and proteins that can interfere with visualization of LPS that occurs with shorter, less intensive extraction methods⁹. LPS prepared this way can be separated by sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS)-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE) and directly stained using carbohydrate/glycoprotein stains or standard silver staining methods. Many anti-sera to LPS contain antibodies that cross-react with outer membrane proteins or other antigenic targets that can hinder reactivity observed following Western immunoblot of SDS-PAGE-separated crude cell lysates. Protease treatment of crude cell lysates alone is not always an effective way of removing this background using this or other visualization methods. Further, extensive protease treatment in an attempt to remove this background can lead to poor quality LPS that is not well resolved by any of the aforementioned methods. For these reasons, we believe that the following protocol, adapted from Westpahl and Jann¹⁰, is ideal for LPS extraction.

Protocol

1. Preparation of Bacteria for LPS Extraction Start an overnight culture in 5 mL of Luria Broth (LB), supplemented with antibiotics if necessary. Grow culture overnight (12-18 hours) in a shaking incubator at 37 °C and 200 rpm. Dilute the culture 1:10 with LB and take an OD600 reading in a spectrophotometer. Based on the OD600 reading, make a 1.5 mL suspension of your bacteria to an OD600 of 0.5. Pellet the bacteria in a microcentrifuge at 10,600x g…

Discussion

We have described a method of purifying LPS away from other cellular components, including nucleic acids and proteins. This method provides high-quality LPS that can be used in a number of different visualization methods, including carbohydrate staining of SDS-PAGE gels, as shown in Figure 1. This method can be used to serotype LPS from a variety of strains, using specific anti-sera, or to show relatedness between isolates by direct visualization. For example, a recent genome-wide sequencing project in combinatio…

Materials

Name of the reagent	Company	Catalogue number
DNase I recombinant, RNase-free	Roche	04716728001
RNase A	Roche	10109169001
Proteinase K	Fisher	BP1700
Tris-Saturated Phenol	Fisher	BP1750-100
Diethyl Ether	Thomas Scientific	C313K31
Pro-Q Emerald 300 Lipopolysaccharide Gel Stain Kit	Molecular Probes	P20495