The Structure of the Lipid A of Gram-Negative Cold-Adapted Bacteria Isolated from Antarctic Environments

• Published in: Marine Drugs
• Main Authors: Flaviana Di Lorenzo, Francesca Crisafi, Violetta La Cono, Michail M. Yakimov, Antonio Molinaro, Alba Silipo
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020
• Subjects: psychrophiles; Antarctic bacteria; Lipopolysaccharide (LPS); lipid A; structural characterization; MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry; Biology (General); QH301-705.5; Antarctic; Terra Nova Bay; Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.3390/md18120592; https://doaj.org/article/fdf0bd935147488fbe31644434026f96

Gram-negative Antarctic bacteria adopt survival strategies to live and proliferate in an extremely cold environment. Unusual chemical modifications of the lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and the main component of their outer membrane are among the tricks adopted to allow the maintenance of an optimum membrane fluidity even at particularly low temperatures. In particular, the LPS’ glycolipid moiety, the lipid A, typically undergoes several structural modifications comprising desaturation of the acyl chains, reduction in their length and increase in their branching. The investigation of the structure of the lipid A from cold-adapted bacteria is, therefore, crucial to understand the mechanisms underlying the cold adaptation phenomenon. Here we describe the structural elucidation of the highly heterogenous lipid A from three psychrophiles isolated from Terra Nova Bay, Antarctica. All the lipid A structures have been determined by merging data that was attained from the compositional analysis with information from a matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization (MALDI) time of flight (TOF) mass spectrometry (MS) and MS 2 investigation. As lipid A is also involved in a structure-dependent elicitation of innate immune response in mammals, the structural characterization of lipid A from such extremophile bacteria is also of great interest from the perspective of drug synthesis and development inspired by natural sources.