Psychrophilic and psychrotolerant bacteria are adapted to grow and thrive at cold temperatures (less than 15�C), and are found frequently in marine environments including polar seas and ice.  This work examines the chemical structure of lipid A from psychrophilic bacteria.  This saccharolipid is the main structural constituent of the outer leaflet of the Gram-negative outer membrane and the hydrophobic anchor of the lipopolysaccharide endotoxin; as the outer hydrophobic surface of these organisms, lipid A is often involved in bacterial interactions with and survival in its environment.  It is the hypothesis of this work that the evolutionary adaptation of psychrophiles to cold conditions involved constitutive structural changes to lipid A in these organisms.  MALDI-TOF MS and FAME GC-MS of purified psychrophilic lipid A samples demonstrate several features that support this hypothesis, including reduced acyl size, increased acyl variability, and increased acyl unsaturation.

Structure and adaptations of endotoxin in marine psychrophiles

245th National Meeting (2013)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.