Affiliation:
1. Departments of Medicine, Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts 02215
Abstract
The mechanism of the lethal action of human serum on a rough strain of
Escherichia coli
was investigated by use of serum with and without lysozyme, in medium of low and high osmotic pressure, with cells radioactively labeled in the peptidoglycan polymer, and by electron microscopy. The results suggested that there are two separate components in the bacterial cell wall that afford structural support for the cell. Lysozyme attacked one of these, the peptidoglycan polymer. Serum damaged the other, which is probably the peripherally located lipopolysaccharide-phospholipid complex. The cell wall damage caused by lysozyme-free serum promptly resulted in cell death under usual conditions. In plasmolyzed cells, however, the wall damage was not lethal, presumably because the membrane of the plasmolyzed cell was protected from secondary lethal changes which otherwise occur.
Publisher
American Society for Microbiology
Subject
Molecular Biology,Microbiology
Cited by
94 articles.
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