Enterobacterial common antigen
class of chemical compounds
The enterobacterial common antigen (ECA) is a carbohydrate antigen found in the outer membrane of many Enterobacterales species. The antigen is unanimously absent from other gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria. Aeromonas hydrophila 209A is the only organism outside of Enterobacterales that expresses the ECA. More studies are needed to explain the presence of the antigen in this species as no other strains of this species express the antigen. The ECA is a polysaccharide made of repeating units of trisaccharides. The functions of these units have very few proven functions. Some evidence indicates role in pathogenicity in the bacteria that present the ECA. There are three separate types of ECA these include ECAPG, ECALPS, and ECACYC, each have different lengths. The synthesis of the ECA is controlled by the wec operon and has a 12-step synthesis which is described below. Due to the lack of proven function of the ECA, any clinical significance is hard to define however, some evidence suggests that human serum has antibodies against ECA.
History
The ECA was first described in 1962 in a paper written by Calvin M. Kunin and colleagues. When documenting strains of E. coli responsible for urinary tract infections, Kunin exposed these E. coli strains to rabbit antisera and various other E. coli strains (102 homologous and heterologous strains). Using passive agglutination, Kunin detected the O-antigen found in the lipopolysaccharide (LPS) of E. coli.
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This entry incorporates text from “Enterobacterial common antigen” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.