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Lipopolysaccharide from Agrobacterium tumefaciens B6 Induces the Production of Strain-Specific Antibodies. Hacene Bouzar, Department of Botany and Plant Pathology, Oregon State University, Corvallis 97331, Present address: Département de Phytopathologie, Institut National d’Enseignement Supérieur en Agronomie, Universite de Blida, B.P. 24 Douirete, Blida, Algeria; Larry W. Moore(2), and Henry W. Schaup(3). (2)Department of Botany and Plant Pathology, Oregon State University, Corvallis 97331; (3)Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, Oregon State University, Corvallis 97331. Phytopathology 78:1237-1241. Accepted for publication 18 April 1988. Copyright 1988 The American Phytopathological Society. DOI: 10.1094/Phyto-78-1237.

A lipopolysaccharide (LPS) preparation from Agrobacterium tumefaciens strain B6 elicited rabbit antibodies that reacted with water-phenol extracts of whole cells to form a strain-specific precipitin band in gel immunodiffusion plates. This antiserum to B6 LPS did not react with water-phenol extracts from 38 other Agrobacterium strains or 12 bacterial species from eight other genera. An additional precipitin band, although only slightly visible, developed against LPS from B6 and nine of the other 38 Agrobacterium strains tested. In this study, LPS was identified as the contaminating strain-specific antigen associated with ribosomal preparations described in earlier studies. LPS was removed from the ribosomal preparation by initial precipitation with 20% ammonium sulfate and sedimentation of the ribosomes in 0.6 M ammonium sulfate.