Loss of a Branch Sugar in the Acinetobacter baumannii K3-Type Capsular Polysaccharide Due To Frameshifts in the <i>gtr6</i> Glycosyltransferase Gene Leads To Susceptibility To Phage APK37.1
Olga Y. Timoshina, Anastasiya A. Kasimova, Mikhail M. Shneider, Nikolay P. Arbatsky, Alexander S. Shashkov, Andrey Shelenkov, Yulia V. Mikhailova, Anastasiya V. Popova, Ruth M. Hall, Yuriy A. Knirel, Johanna J. Kenyon
Abstract
Lytic bacteriophage have potential for the treatment of otherwise untreatable extensively antibiotic-resistant bacteria. For Acinetobacter baumannii, most phage exhibit specificity for the type of capsular polysaccharide (CPS) produced on the cell surface. However, resistance can arise via mutations in CPS genes that abolish this phage receptor. Here, we show that single-base deletions in a CPS gene result in alteration of the final structure rather than deletion of the capsule layer and hence affect the ability of a newly reported podophage to infect strains producing the K3 CPS.