Availability and specificity of lipopolysaccharide on the surface of 56 °C heated Bordetella pertussis

Abstract

The technique of hemagglutination-inhibition was used to study the availability and specificity of Bordetella pertussis lipopolysaccharide (LPS) on the cell surface of 10 strains of B. pertussis.It was found that all B. pertussis strains studied possessed freely accessible LPS determinant groups on their cell surfaces and that these determinants, designated A, B, D, and E, were distributed so that strains possessed either A and E or B and D. There was no correlation between the pattern of LPS determinants and the Phase status of the strains.