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Azospirillum brasilense Sp7 produces an outer-membrane lectin that specifically binds to surface-exposed extracellular polysaccharide produced by the bacterium

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Abstract

Azospirillum sp promotes the growth of many important crop plants. We demonstrated lectin binding activity in outer-membrane protein extracts of A. brasilense Sp7 by hemagglutination assays. The lectin specifically recognised the exopolysaccharide (EPS) produced by aggregated cells. Affinity chromatography using EPS-Sepharose was used to identify a 67 kDa outer-membrane lectin (OML) that recognised a binding region in the extracellular polysaccharide. Results show the specific recognition and binding between EPS and OML. The potential relationship between cell-to-cell aggregation and the OML–EPS interaction is discussed.

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Acknowledgments

The work was supported by grants from Programa de Desarrollo de Ciencias Básicas (PEDECIBA-QUIMICA), Uruguay and International Foundation for Science (IFS, Project 2834/3), Sweden. We thank Dr. Paul Gill for linguistic revision and fruitful discussion of the work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Cátedra de Bioquímica, Departamento de Biociencias, Facultad de Química, CC 1157, Montevideo, Uruguay

    Paola Mora & Laura Franco Fraguas

  2. Departamento de Bioquímica, Instituto de Investigaciones Biológicas Clemente Estable, Av. Italia 3318, CP 11600, Montevideo, Uruguay

    Federico Rosconi & Susana Castro-Sowinski

  3. Sección Bioquímica, Facultad de Ciencias, UdelaR, Mataojo s/n, Montevideo, 11200, Uruguay

    Susana Castro-Sowinski

Authors
  1. Paola Mora
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  2. Federico Rosconi
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  3. Laura Franco Fraguas
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  4. Susana Castro-Sowinski
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Susana Castro-Sowinski.

Additional information

Communicated by Ursula Priefer.

Paola Mora and Federico Rosconi contributed equally to this study. Laura Franco Fraguas and Susana Castro-Sowinski equally supervised this study.

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Mora, P., Rosconi, F., Franco Fraguas, L. et al. Azospirillum brasilense Sp7 produces an outer-membrane lectin that specifically binds to surface-exposed extracellular polysaccharide produced by the bacterium. Arch Microbiol 189, 519–524 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00203-007-0343-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00203-007-0343-5

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