Effects of partial deletion of the wzm and wzt genes on lipopolysaccharide synthesis and virulence of Brucella abortus S19.

Brucellosis is a worldwide human and animal infectious disease, and the effective methods of its control are immunisation of animals by vaccination and elimination. Brucella abortus S19 is one of the popular vaccines with virulence in the control of cattle Brucellosis. In the present study, allelic exchange plasmids of wzm and wzt genes and partial knockout mutants of wzm and wzt were constructed to evaluate the resulting difference in virulence of B. abortus S19. PCR analysis revealed that the target genes were knocked out. The mutants were rough mutants and they could be differentiated from natural infection by the Rose Bengal plate and standard agglutination tests. The molecular weights of lipopolysaccharides of the Delta wzm and Delta wzt mutants were clustered between 25 and 40 kDa, and 30 and 35 kDa separately, and were markedly different from those in B. abortus S19. The virulence of B. abortus Delta wzm and Delta wzt was decreased compared with that of B. abortus S19 in mice. All these results identified that there were several differences between the wzm and wzt genes on lipopolysaccharide synthesis and on the virulence of B. abortus.