Imperial College London
Alternate

Dr Abigail Clements

Faculty of Natural Sciences, Department of Life Sciences

Senior Lecturer
 
 
 
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Contact

 

+44 (0)20 7594 7681a.clements

 
 
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Location

 

1.42Flowers buildingSouth Kensington Campus

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Summary

 

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Clements:2008:10.1371/journal.pone.0003817,
author = {Clements, A and Gaboriaud, F and Duval, JFL and Farn, JL and Jenney, AW and Lithgow, T and Wijburg, OLC and Hartland, EL and Strugnell, RA},
doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0003817},
journal = {PLOS One},
title = {The major surface-associated saccharides of Klebsiella pneumoniae contribute to host cell association},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0003817},
volume = {3},
year = {2008}
}
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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - Analysing the pathogenic mechanisms of a bacterium requires an understanding of the composition of the bacterial cell surface. The bacterial surface provides the first barrier against innate immune mechanisms as well as mediating attachment to cells/surfaces to resist clearance. We utilised a series of Klebsiella pneumoniae mutants in which the two major polysaccharide layers, capsule and lipopolysaccharide (LPS), were absent or truncated, to investigate the ability of these layers to protect against innate immune mechanisms and to associate with eukaryotic cells. The capsule alone was found to be essential for resistance to complement mediated killing while both capsule and LPS were involved in cell-association, albeit through different mechanisms. The capsule impeded cell-association while the LPS saccharides increased cell-association in a non-specific manner. The electrohydrodynamic characteristics of the strains suggested the differing interaction of each bacterial strain with eukaryotic cells could be partly explained by the charge density displayed by the outermost polysaccharide layer. This highlights the importance of considering not only specific adhesin:ligand interactions commonly studied in adherence assays but also the initial non-specific interactions governed largely by the electrostatic interaction forces.
AU  - Clements,A
AU  - Gaboriaud,F
AU  - Duval,JFL
AU  - Farn,JL
AU  - Jenney,AW
AU  - Lithgow,T
AU  - Wijburg,OLC
AU  - Hartland,EL
AU  - Strugnell,RA
DO  - 10.1371/journal.pone.0003817
PY  - 2008///
SN  - 1932-6203
TI  - The major surface-associated saccharides of Klebsiella pneumoniae contribute to host cell association
T2  - PLOS One
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0003817
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/32936
VL  - 3
ER  -
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