Small-angle X-ray scattering analysis of pneumococcal lipoteichoic acid phase structure

X-Ray-scattering analysis was performed on micelles of lipoteichoic acid from Streptococcus pneumoniae. This lipoteichoic acid differs from poly(glycerophosphate) and poly(glycosylglycerophosphate) lipoteichoic acids by a unique positively charged diacylglyceroglycolipid anchor and a complex structure of the hydrophilic chain which is composed of zwitterionic tetrasaccharide ribitol phosphate repeats each carrying two zwitterionic phosphocholine substituents. The size distribution of the lipoteichoic acid micelles was sufficiently homogenous to determine their size and some related molecular parameters by small-angle scattering analysis. Nearly independent on the ionic strength of the aqueous dispersion, an average micelle contained about 150 lipoteichoic acid molecules arranged in a spherical assembly with a diameter of about 23 nm, whereby the hydrophilic region occupied an outer shell of about 8.5 nm thickness. Taken this as the average chain length of LTA in the micelle and 7.2 repeats per chain, each repeat contributed about 1.2 nm to the thickness of the hydrophilic shell as compared to 2.4 nm for a fully extended chain conformation and 1.1 nm estimated for a more helical arrangement [Klein, R. A., Hartmann, R., Egge, H., Behr, T. & Fischer, W. (1994) Carbohydr. Res. 256, 189-222]. A comparison with the micelle of poly(glycerophosphate) lipoteichoic acid of Staphylococcus aureus suggests that the supramolecular structure is largely independent of the structure of the hydrophilic chain and solely dictated by the small cross-sectional area of the diacylglycerol moiety common to all lipoteichoic acids and lipoglycans of gram-positive bacteria.