{"doi":"10.17615/wpq8-5g64","title":"Polysaccharides Cellulose, Poly- -1,6-N-Acetyl-D-Glucosamine, and Colanic Acid Are Required for Optimal Binding of Escherichia coli O157:H7 Strains to Alfalfa Sprouts and K-12 Strains to Plastic but Not for Binding to Epithelial Cells","abstract":"When Escherichia coli O157:H7 bacteria are added to alfalfa sprouts growing in water, the bacteria bind tightly to the sprouts. In contrast, laboratory K-12 strains of E. coli do not bind to sprouts under similar conditions. The roles of E. coli O157:H7 lipopolysaccharide (LPS), capsular polysaccharide, and exopolysaccharides in binding to sprouts were examined. An LPS mutant had no effect on the binding of the pathogenic strain. Cellulose synthase mutants showed a significant reduction in binding; colanic acid mutants were more severely reduced, and binding by poly-β-1,6-N-acetylglucosamine (PGA) mutants was barely detectable. The addition of a plasmid carrying a cellulose synthase gene to K-12 strains allowed them to bind to sprouts. A plasmid carrying the Bps biosynthesis genes had only a marginal effect on the binding of K-12 bacteria. However, the introduction of the same plasmid allowed Sinorhizobium meliloti and a nonbinding mutant of Agrobacterium tumefaciens to bind to tomato root segments. These results suggest that although multiple redundant protein adhesins are involved in the binding of E. coli O157:H7 to sprouts, the polysaccharides required for binding are not redundant and each polysaccharide may play a distinct role. PGA, colanic acid, and cellulose were also required for biofilm formation by a K-12 strain on plastic, but not for the binding of E. coli O157:H7 to mammalian cells.","journal":"UNC Libraries","year":2020,"id":141402,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9577,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2020-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":607436,"name":"A. G. Torres","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":606926,"name":"Ann G. Matthysse","orcid":"0000-0002-5674-2770","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":607437,"name":"M. Mishra","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":607435,"name":"R. Deora","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":0,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:17:24.429854Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}