Neisseria meningitidis serogroup B lipooligosaccharide genotyping reveals high prevalence of L2 strains in Spain and unexpected relationship with factor H-binding protein expression.

Neisseria meningitidis may be classified according to the lipooligosaccharide immunotype. We show that this classification can be achieved by PCR genotyping of the genes involved in the lipooligosaccharide inner-core biosynthesis, lpt3, lpt6, lgtG and lot3. Genotyping data correlated well (90-100%) with mass spectrometry data and was, therefore, applied to screen a random subset of recent N.