The O-polysaccharide of
Mesorhizobium loti HAMBI 1148 was obtained by mild acid degradation of the lipopolysaccharide and studied by sugar and methylation analyses, Smith degradation, and
1H and
13C NMR spectroscopies, including 2D
1H/
1H COSY, TOCSY, ROESY, and H-detected
1H/
13C HSQC experiments. The O-polysaccharide was found to have a branched hexasaccharide-repeating unit of the following structure:
where 2-acetamido-2-deoxy-4-O-methyl-d-glucose (d-GlcNAc4Me) and methyl group on 2-substituted d-rhamnose (Me) shown in italics are present in 80 % and 40 % repeating units, respectively. Similar studies of the O-polysaccharide from Mesorhizobium amorphae ATCC 19655 by sugar analysis and NMR spectroscopy revealed essentially the same structure but a higher content of 3-O-methyl-d-rhamnose (70 % ).