Structural Studies of the Putative O‐Specific Polysaccharide of Acinetobacter baumannii O2 containing 3,6‐dideoxy‐3–N ‐(d‐3‐hydroxybutyryl)amino‐d‐galactose

Abstract

A polysaccharide containing d‐galactose, 2‐deoxy‐2–N ‐acetylamino‐d‐galactose and 3,6‐dideoxy‐3–N ‐(d‐3‐hydroxybutyryl)amino‐d‐galactose, probably corresponding to the lipopolysaccharide side chain, was obtained from an aqueous phenol extract of isolated cell walls from Acinetobacter baumannii strain O2. By means of NMR studies and chemical degradations, the repeating unit of the polymer was identified as a branched hexasaccharide of the structure shown, where Fuc3N represents 3‐amino‐3,6‐dideoxygalac‐tose and R represents d‐3‐hydroxybutyryl. Serological tests indicated that the polymer corresponded to the O2 antigen.