Detection of the unique sugars virenose and dihydrohydroxystreptose from Coxiella burnetii using alditol acetylation and liquid chromatography mass spectroscopy

The bacterium Coxiella burnetii causes Q-Fever in humans and coxiellosis in animals. This work presents a robust, sensitive and selective method for the identification of two unique sugars found in the lipopolysaccharide of C. burnetii. The sugars were derivatised using alditol acetylation and identified using high performance liquid chromatography coupled to high resolution mass spectrometry. Virenose and dihydrohydroxystreptose were observed to be only partially acetylated during derivatisation and this was found to be valuable for the identification of these sugars in the absence of commercial standards. This sensitive methods can be applied in diagnostic fields and help to further characterise the cell-wall lipopolysaccharide of C. burnetii.