Immunochemical studies on lipopolysaccharide from agglutinable and non-agglutinable vibrios.

Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) prepared from Vibrio cholerae and a non-agglutinable (NAG; not agglutinable with O-group I serum according to Gardner and Venkatraman [13]) vibrio strain, isolated from a patient with cholera-like clinical symptoms, have been compared with respect to their chemical composition and immunological behavior. In addition to a significant difference in the chemical composition between the two lipopolysaccharides, the LPS from V. cholerae, unlike that from the NAG vibrio, requires prior treatment with alkali for it to be an effective antigen in the indirect hemagglutination test with sheep cells. It has been suggested that the alkali acts by removing excess O-acetyl group from LPS of agglutinable vibrios. LPS from the NAG vibrio consistently showed a lower antibody response in rabbits in terms of agglutinin and vibriocidal titer. Also, the class of agglutinin antibody elicited by LPS of the NAG vibrio was predominantly immunoglobin M, and that from V. cholerae was immunoglobulin G under comparable conditions.