Outer membrane of Salmonella typhimurium: chemical analysis and freeze-fracture studies with lipopolysaccharide mutants.

The outer membrane layer of the cell wall was isolated from wild-type Salmonella typhimurium LT2 as well as from its mutants producing lipopolysaccharides with shorter saccharide chains. Chemical analysis of these preparations indicated the following. (i) The number of lipopolysaccharide molecules per unit area was constant, regardless of the length of the saccharide side chain in lipopolysaccharide. (ii) In contrast, in "deep rough" (Rd or Re) mutants producing the lipopolysaccharides with very short saccharide chains, the amount of outer membrane protein per unit surface area decreased to about 60% of the value in the wild type. (iii) In the wild type, the amount of phospholipids is slightly less than what is needed to cover one side of the membrane as a monolayer. In comparison with the wild type, the outer membrane of Rd and Re mutants contains about 70% more phospholipids, which therefore must be distributed in both the outer and inner leaflets of the membrane. Freeze-fracture studies showed that the outer membrane of Re mutants were easily fractured, but fracture became increasingly difficult in strains producing lipopolysaccharides with longer side chains. The convex fracture face was always nearly smooth, but the concave fracture face or the outer half of the membrane was densely covered with particles 8 to 10 nm in diameter. The density of particles was decreased in Re mutants to the same extent as the reduction in proteins, suggesting the largely proteinaceous nature of particles. A model for the supramolecular structure of the outer membrane is presented on the basis of these and other results.