STUDIES ON THE CHEMISTRY OF WAX D OF BCG

I. FRACTIONATION OF WAX D OF BCG: ISOLATION OF CORD FACTOR AND OLIGOMANNOINOSITIDES

Abstract

Wax D of BCG was fractionated into two constituents by silicic acid chromatography. From one fraction, cord factor was isolated and from the other, phosphoinositides containing oligomanno-ose, tentatively designated as “Oligomannoinositides, ” were obtained. The behaviour of “purified wa” on the silicic acid column was discussed.
The author wishes to thank Dr. D. Mizuno, Chief of the Department of Chemistry, National Institute of Health, Tokyo, for his constant encouragement and advices throughout this work. He is also grateful to Professor Dr. T. Ukita, of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Tokyo, for his constant encouragement. Thanks are also due to Miss E. Kondo, of the Department of Chemistry, National Institute of Health, for her skillful technical assistance in every experiment of this work. Micro-analyses for carbon and hydrogen were carried out by Miss S. Hara of the Department of Chemistry, National Institute of Health, Tokyo.
Addenda: Since this manuscript was submitted it has come to the attention of the author that lipopolysaccharides have been isolated from Wax D of human type strain of tubercle bacilli. They were found in the chloroform eluate from the partition chromato-graphy of wax D on silicic acid. (Personal communication from Dr. Asselineau (Paris))