Relationships among the O-antigen gene clusters of Salmonella enterica groups B, D1, D2, and D3

The O antigen is an important cell wall antigen of gram-negative bacteria, and the genes responsible for its biosynthesis are located in a gene cluster. We have cloned and sequenced the DNA segment unique to the O-antigen gene cluster of Salmonella enterica group D3. This segment includes a novel O-antigen polymerase gene (wzy(D3),,). The polymerase gives alpha(1-->6) linkages but has no detectable sequence similarity to that of group D2, which confers the same linkage. We find the remnant of a DJ-like wzy gene in the O-antigen gene clusters of groups D1 and B and suggest that this is the original wzy gene of these O-antigen gene clusters.