Abstract
Pseudaminic and legionaminic acids are a subgroup of nonulosonic acids (NulOs) unique to bacterial species. There is a lack of advances in the study of these NulOs due to their complex synthesis and production. Recently, it was seen that “Candidatus Accumulibacter” can produce Pse or Leg analogues as part of its extracellular polymeric substances (EPS). In order to employ a “Ca. Accumulibacter” enrichment as production platform for bacterial sialic acids, it is necessary to determine which fractions of the EPS of “Ca. Accumulibacter” contain NulOs and how to enrich and/or isolate them. We extracted the EPS from granules enriched with “Ca. Accumulibcater” and used size-exclusion chromatography (SEC) to separate them into different molecular weight (MW) fractions. This separation resulted in two high molecular weight (> 5500 kDa) fractions dominated by polysaccharides, with a NulO content up to 4 times higher than the extracted EPS. This suggests that NulOs in “Ca. Accumulibacter” are likely located in high molecular weight polysaccharides. Additionally, it was seen that the extracted EPS and the NulO-rich fractions can bind and neutralize histones. This opens the possibility of EPS and NulO-rich fractions as potential source for sepsis treatment drugs.
Key points
• NulOs in “Ca. Accumulibacter” are likely located in high MW polysaccharides
• SEC allows to obtain high MW polysaccharide-rich fractions enriched with NulOs
• EPS and the NulOs-rich fractions are a potential source for sepsis treatment drugs
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs00253-022-12326-x/MediaObjects/253_2022_12326_Fig1_HTML.png)
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs00253-022-12326-x/MediaObjects/253_2022_12326_Fig2_HTML.png)
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs00253-022-12326-x/MediaObjects/253_2022_12326_Fig3_HTML.png)
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs00253-022-12326-x/MediaObjects/253_2022_12326_Fig4_HTML.png)
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs00253-022-12326-x/MediaObjects/253_2022_12326_Fig5_HTML.png)
Similar content being viewed by others
Availability of data and material
The data generated and/or analyzed during the current study are included in this article and its supplementary material. Sequences obtained are deposited under the Bioproject accession number PRJNA887943 in the NCBI database.
Code availability
Not applicable.
References
Barr JJ, Dutilh BE, Skennerton CT, Fukushima T, Hastie ML, Gorman JJ, Tyson GW, Bond PL (2016) Metagenomic and metaproteomic analyses of Accumulibacter phosphatis-enriched floccular and granular biofilm. Environ Microbiol 18:273–287. https://doi.org/10.1111/1462-2920.13019
Bednar B, Hennessey JP (1993) Molecular size analysis of capsular polysaccharide preparations from Streptococcus pneumoniae. Carbohydr Res 243:115–130. https://doi.org/10.1016/0008-6215(93)84085-K
Boleij M, Kleikamp H, Pabst M, Neu TR, van Loosdrecht MCM, Lin Y (2020) Decorating the anammox house: sialic acids and sulfated glycosaminoglycans in the extracellular polymeric substances of anammox granular sludge. Environ Sci Technol 54:5218–5226. https://doi.org/10.1021/ACS.EST.9B07207
Boleij M, Pabst M, Neu TR, van Loosdrecht MCM, Lin Y (2018) Identification of glycoproteins isolated from extracellular polymeric substances of full-scale anammox granular sludge. Environ Sci Technol 52:13127–13135. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.8b03180
Caporaso JG, Kuczynski J, Stombaugh J, Bittinger K, Bushman FD, Costello EK, Fierer N, Pẽa AG, Goodrich JK, Gordon JI, Huttley GA, Kelley ST, Knights D, Koenig JE, Ley RE, Lozupone CA, McDonald D, Muegge BD, Pirrung M, Reeder J, Sevinsky JR, Turnbaugh PJ, Walters WA, Widmann J, Yatsunenko T, Zaneveld J (2010) Knight R (2010) QIIME allows analysis of high-throughput community sequencing data. Nat Methods 75(7):335–336. https://doi.org/10.1038/nmeth.f.303
Carter JR, Kiefel MJ (2018) A new approach to the synthesis of legionaminic acid analogues. RSC Adv 8:35768–35775. https://doi.org/10.1039/C8RA07771A
Chen X, Varki A (2010) Advances in the biology and chemistry of sialic acids. ACS Chem Biol 5:163–176
Chidwick HS, Flack EKP, Keenan T, Walton J, Thomas GH (2021) Fascione MA (2021) Reconstitution and optimisation of the biosynthesis of bacterial sugar pseudaminic acid (Pse5Ac7Ac) enables preparative enzymatic synthesis of CMP-Pse5Ac7Ac. Sci Reports 111(11):1–12. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-83707-x
de Bruin S, Vasquez-Cardenas D, Sarbu SM, Meysman FJR, Sousa DZ, van Loosdrecht MCM, Lin Y (2022) Sulfated glycosaminoglycan-like polymers are present in an acidophilic biofilm from a sulfidic cave. Sci Total Environ 829:154472. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.SCITOTENV.2022.154472
de Graaff DR, Felz S, Neu TR, Pronk M, van Loosdrecht MCM, Lin Y (2019) Sialic acids in the extracellular polymeric substances of seawater-adapted aerobic granular sludge. Water Res 155:343–351. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.WATRES.2019.02.040
Dionisi D, Silva IMO (2016) Production of ethanol, organic acids and hydrogen: an opportunity for mixed culture biotechnology? Rev Environ Sci Bio/Technology 152(15):213–242. https://doi.org/10.1007/S11157-016-9393-Y
Dubois M, Gilles KA, Hamilton JK, Rebers PA, Smith F (1956) Colorimetric method for determination of sugars and related substances. Anal Chem 28:350–356. https://doi.org/10.1021/AC60111A017/ASSET/AC60111A017.FP.PNG_V03
Edgar RC (2013) (2013) UPARSE: highly accurate OTU sequences from microbial amplicon reads. Nat Methods 1010(10):996–998. https://doi.org/10.1038/nmeth.2604
Edgar RC, Haas BJ, Clemente JC, Quince C, Knight R (2011) UCHIME improves sensitivity and speed of chimera detection. Bioinformatics 27:2194–2200. https://doi.org/10.1093/BIOINFORMATICS/BTR381
Felz S, Al-Zuhairy S, Aarstad OA, van Loosdrecht MCM, Lin YM (2016) Extraction of structural extracellular polymeric substances from aerobic granular sludge. J Vis Exp:e54534. https://doi.org/10.3791/54534
Felz S, Neu TR, van Loosdrecht MCM, Lin Y (2020) Aerobic granular sludge contains hyaluronic acid-like and sulfated glycosaminoglycans-like polymers. Water Res 169:115291. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.WATRES.2019.115291
Felz S, Vermeulen P, van Loosdrecht MCM, Lin YM (2019) Chemical characterization methods for the analysis of structural extracellular polymeric substances (EPS). Water Res 157:201–208. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.WATRES.2019.03.068
Flack EKP, Chidwick HS, Best M, Thomas GH, Fascione MA (2020) Synthetic approaches for accessing pseudaminic acid (Pse) bacterial glycans. ChemBioChem 21:1397–1407. https://doi.org/10.1002/CBIC.202000019
Galuska SP, Galuska CE, Tharmalingam T, Zlatina K, Prem G, Husejnov FCO, Rudd PM, Vann WF, Reid C, Vionnet J, Gallagher ME, Carrington FA, Hassett SL, Carrington SD (2017) In vitro generation of polysialylated cervical mucins by bacterial polysialyltransferases to counteract cytotoxicity of extracellular histones. FEBS J 284:1688–1699. https://doi.org/10.1111/FEBS.14073
Garnier C, Görner T, Lartiges BS, Abdelouhab S, De Donato P (2005) Characterization of activated sludge exopolymers from various origins: a combined size-exclusion chromatography and infrared microscopy study. Water Res 39:3044–3054. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.WATRES.2005.05.007
Gómez-Ordóñez E, Jiménez-Escrig A, Rupérez P (2012) Molecular weight distribution of polysaccharides from edible seaweeds by high-performance size-exclusion chromatography (HPSEC). Talanta 93:153–159. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.TALANTA.2012.01.067
Goon S, Kelly JF, Logan SM, Ewing CP, Guerry P (2003) Pseudaminic acid, the major modification on Campylobacter flagellin, is synthesized via the Cj1293 gene. Mol Microbiol 50:659–671. https://doi.org/10.1046/J.1365-2958.2003.03725.X
Guedes da Silva L, Olavarria Gamez K, Castro Gomes J, Akkermans K, Welles L, Abbas B, van Loosdrecht MCM, Wahl SA (2020) Revealing the metabolic flexibility of “Candidatus Accumulibacter phosphatis” through redox cofactor analysis and metabolic network modeling. Appl Environ Microbiol 86:e00808–20. https://doi.org/10.1128/AEM.00808-20
Haines-Menges BL, Whitaker WB, Lubin JB, Boyd EF (2015) Host sialic acids: a delicacy for the pathogen with discerning taste. In: Metabolism and Bacterial Pathogenesis. Am Soc Microbiol pp. 321–342. https://doi.org/10.1128/microbiolspec.MBP-0005-2014
Jurcisek J, Greiner L, Watanabe H, Zaleski A, Apicella MA, Bakaletz LO (2005) Role of sialic acid and complex carbohydrate biosynthesis in biofilm formation by nontypeable Haemophilus influenzae in the Chinchilla Middle Ear. Infect Immun 73:3210. https://doi.org/10.1128/IAI.73.6.3210-3218.2005
Kleerebezem R, van Loosdrecht MC (2007) Mixed culture biotechnology for bioenergy production. Curr Opin Biotechnol 18:207–212. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.COPBIO.2007.05.001
Kleikamp HBC, Lin YM, McMillan DGG, Geelhoed JS, Naus-Wiezer SNH, van Baarlen P, Saha C, Louwen R, Sorokin DY, van Loosdrecht MCM, Pabst M (2020) Tackling the chemical diversity of microbial nonulosonic acids – a universal large-scale survey approach. Chem Sci. https://doi.org/10.1039/C9SC06406K
Knirel YA, Shashkov AS, Tsvetkov YE, Jansson PE, Zähringer U (2003) 5,7-Diamino-3,5,7,9-tetradeoxynon-2-ulosonic acids in bacterial glycopolymers: chemistry and biochemistry. Adv Carbohydr Chem Biochem 58:371–417. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2318(03)58007-6
Lee IM, Yang FL, Chen TL, Liao KS, Ren CT, Lin NT, Chang YP, Wu CY, Wu SH (2018) Pseudaminic acid on exopolysaccharide of Acinetobacter baumannii plays a critical role in phage-assisted preparation of glycoconjugate vaccine with high antigenicity. J Am Chem Soc 140:8639–8643. https://doi.org/10.1021/JACS.8B04078/ASSET/IMAGES/LARGE/JA-2018-04078A_0003.JPEG
Lewis AL, Desa N, Hansen EE, Knirel YA, Gordon JI, Gagneux P, Nizet V, Varki A (2009) Innovations in host and microbial sialic acid biosynthesis revealed by phylogenomic prediction of nonulosonic acid structure. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 106:13552–13557. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0902431106
Liu X, Sun S, Ma B, Zhang C, Wan C, Lee DJ (2016) Understanding of aerobic granulation enhanced by starvation in the perspective of quorum sensing. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 100:3747–3755. https://doi.org/10.1007/S00253-015-7246-1/TABLES/2
Oehmen A, Yuan Z, Blackall LL, Keller J (2005) Comparison of acetate and propionate uptake by polyphosphate accumulating organisms and glycogen accumulating organisms. Biotechnol Bioeng 91:162–168. https://doi.org/10.1002/BIT.20500
Pinel ISM, Kleikamp HBC, Pabst M, Vrouwenvelder JS, van Loosdrecht MCM, Lin Y (2020) Sialic acids: an important family of carbohydrates overlooked in environmental biofilms. Appl Sci 10:7694. https://doi.org/10.3390/APP10217694
Quast C, Pruesse E, Yilmaz P, Gerken J, Schweer T, Yarza P, Peplies J, Glöckner FO (2013) The SILVA ribosomal RNA gene database project: improved data processing and web-based tools. Nucleic Acids Res 41:D590. https://doi.org/10.1093/NAR/GKS1219
Radicioni G, Cao R, Carpenter J, Ford AA, Wang TT, Li Y (2016) Kesimer M (2016) The innate immune properties of airway mucosal surfaces are regulated by dynamic interactions between mucins and interacting proteins: the mucin interactome. Mucosal Immunol 96(9):1442–1454. https://doi.org/10.1038/mi.2016.27
Restaino OF, D’ambrosio S, Cassese E, Ferraiuolo SB, Alfano A, Ventriglia R, Marrazzo A, Schiraldi C, Cimini D (2019) Molecular weight determination of heparosan- and chondroitin-like capsular polysaccharides: figuring out differences between wild -type and engineered Escherichia coli strains. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 103:6771–6782. https://doi.org/10.1007/S00253-019-09969-8/TABLES/2
Serafim LS, Lemos PC, Albuquerque MGE, Reis MAM (2008) Strategies for PHA production by mixed cultures and renewable waste materials. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 81:615–628. https://doi.org/10.1007/S00253-008-1757-Y/TABLES/2
Simon S, Païro B, Villain M, D’Abzac P, Van HE, Lens P, Guibaud G (2009) Evaluation of size exclusion chromatography (SEC) for the characterization of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) in anaerobic granular sludges. Bioresour Technol 100:6258–6268. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.BIORTECH.2009.07.013
Smith PK, Krohn RI, Hermanson GT, Mallia AK, Gartner FH, Provenzano MD, Fujimoto EK, Goeke NM, Olson BJ, Klenk DC (1985) Measurement of protein using bicinchoninic acid. Anal Biochem 150:76–85. https://doi.org/10.1016/0003-2697(85)90442-7
Smolders GJF, van der Meij J, van Loosdrecht MCM, Heijnen JJ (1994) Model of the anaerobic metabolism of the biological phosphorus removal process: stoichiometry and pH influence. Biotechnol Bioeng 43:461–470. https://doi.org/10.1002/BIT.260430605
Stamatopoulou P, Malkowski J, Conrado L, Brown K, Scarborough M (2020) Fermentation of organic residues to beneficial chemicals: a review of medium-chain fatty acid production. Process 8:1571. https://doi.org/10.3390/PR8121571
Tomás-Martínez S, Kleikamp HBC, Neu TR, Pabst M, Weissbrodt DG, van Loosdrecht MCM (2021) Lin Y (2021) Production of nonulosonic acids in the extracellular polymeric substances of “Candidatus Accumulibacter phosphatis”. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 1058(105):3327–3338. https://doi.org/10.1007/S00253-021-11249-3
Tomek MB, Janesch B, Maresch D, Windwarder M, Altmann F, Messner P, Schäffer C (2017) A pseudaminic acid or a legionaminic acid derivative transferase is strain-specifically implicated in the general protein O-glycosylation system of the periodontal pathogen Tannerella forsythia. Glycobiology 27:555–567. https://doi.org/10.1093/GLYCOB/CWX019
Ulm C, Saffarzadeh M, Mahavadi P, Müller S, Prem G, Saboor F, Simon P, Middendorff R, Geyer H, Henneke I, Bayer N, Rinné S, Lütteke T, Böttcher-Friebertshäuser E, Gerardy-Schahn R, Schwarzer D, Mühlenhoff M, Preissner KT, Günther A, Geyer R, Galuska SP (2013) Soluble polysialylated NCAM: a novel player of the innate immune system in the lung. Cell Mol Life Sci 70:3695–3708. https://doi.org/10.1007/S00018-013-1342-0/FIGURES/8
Varki A, Schnaar RL, Schauer R (2017) Sialic acids and other nonulosonic acids. In: Varki A (ed) Essentials of Glycobiology, 3rd edn. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, Cold Spring Harbor, pp 179–195
Wang K, Liu M, Mo R (2020a) Polysaccharide-based biomaterials for protein delivery. Med Drug Discov 7:100031. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.MEDIDD.2020.100031
Wang Z, Wang L, Cao C, ** H, Zhang Y, Liu Y, Gao Y, Liang X, Li G, Shou S (2020b) Heparin attenuates histone-mediated cytotoxicity in septic acute kidney injury. Front Med 7:755. https://doi.org/10.3389/FMED.2020.586652/BIBTEX
Weissbrodt DG, Maillard J, Brovelli A, Chabrelie A, May J, Holliger C (2014) Multilevel correlations in the biological phosphorus removal process: from bacterial enrichment to conductivity-based metabolic batch tests and polyphosphatase assays. Biotechnol Bioeng 111:2421–2435. https://doi.org/10.1002/BIT.25320
Weissbrodt DG, Neu TR, Kuhlicke U, Rappaz Y, Holliger C (2013) Assessment of bacterial and structural dynamics in aerobic granular biofilms. Front Microbiol 4:175. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2013.00175
Xu J, Zhang X, Pelayo R, Monestier M, Ammollo CT, Semeraro F, Taylor FB, Esmon NL, Lupu F, Esmon CT (2009) Extracellular histones are major mediators of death in sepsis. Nat Med 15:1318–1321. https://doi.org/10.1038/NM.2053
Zlatina K, Lütteke T, Galuska SP (2017) Individual impact of distinct polysialic acid chain lengths on the cytotoxicity of histone H1, H2A, H2B, H3 and H4. Polymers (Basel) 9:720. https://doi.org/10.3390/POLYM9120720
Funding
This work is part of the research project “Nature inspired biopolymer nanocomposites towards a cyclic economy” (Nanocycle) funded by the program Closed cycles – Transition to a circular economy (grant no. ALWGK.2016.025) of the Earth and Life Sciences Division of the Dutch Research Council (NWO).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
STM and YL planned the research based on intensive discussions among all the authors. STM and LMC performed most of the laboratory work. MP conducted the mass spectrometry analysis. STM interpreted the data with support of YL, MvL, and YL. STM and YL played major roles in drafting and writing the manuscript with input of DW and MvL. All authors read and approved the manuscript.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Ethical approval
Not applicable.
Patient consent
Not applicable.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare no competing interests.
Additional information
Publisher's note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Supplementary Information
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Tomás-Martínez, S., Chen, L.M., Pabst, M. et al. Enrichment and application of extracellular nonulosonic acids containing polymers of Accumulibacter. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 107, 931–941 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-022-12326-x
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-022-12326-x