Structural effects of the Azospirillum lipopolysaccharides in cell suspensions

The structural influence of Azospirillum lipopolysaccharides (LPS) and lipopolysaccharide-protein complexes (LPPC) on carrot, erythrocyte, and bacterial cell suspensions was explored. The structural potentialities of O-specific polysaccharide fragments of LPS and protein fractions of LPPC were also evaluated. An ability to induce the formation of three kinds of structures in the cell suspensions was revealed depending on the chemical composition of the preparations used. The first and the second ones were connected with effects of cell aggregation (a relatively fast process) and agglutination (a relatively slow process). The third one resulted in phase separation of erythrocyte suspensions (a medium-speed process), with segregating the cells to a separate homogeneous liquid phase.