Biochemical Aspects of Competence in the Bacillus Subtilis Transformation System. Ii. Autolytic Enzyme Activity of Cell Walls.

Biochemical Aspects of Competence in the Bacillus subtilis Transformation System

A lytic factor, associated with the cell wall, was fortuitously discovered during the course of the investigations described in the previous paper (1). In the pneumococcal transformation system (2-5) as well as in the Bacillus subtilis transformation system (6), the highly transformable strains possessed active autolytic enzymes. Consequently, studies were undertaken to investigate the relation...

Biochemical Aspects of Competence in the Bacillus Subtilis Transformation System. I. Chemical Composition of Cell Walls.

Populations of Pneumococcus (1)) Haemophilus inJEuenxae (2)) and Bacillus subtilis (3, 4) develop the capacity to incorporate and to be modified genetically by deoxyribonucleic acid during the latter portion of the logarithmic phase of growth. In 1946 McCarty, Taylor, and Avery (5) suggested that this rapid development of sensitivity to transforming DNA might be related to a reversible alterati...

Autolytic enzyme associated with cell walls of Bacillus subtilis.

Regulation of the bacterial cell wall: analysis of a mutant of Bacillus subtilis defective in biosynthesis of teichoic acid.

Bacillus subtilis 168ts-200B is a temperature-sensitive mutant of B. subtilis 168 which grows as rods at 30 C but as irregular spheres at 45 C. Growth at the nonpermissive temperature resulted in a deficiency of teichoic acid in the cell wall. A decrease in teichoic acid synthesis coupled with the rapid turnover of this polymer led to a progressive loss until less than 20% of the level found in...

Cell wall turnover at the hemispherical caps of Bacillus subtilis.

Cell walls made by Bacillus subtilis bacteria grown in D(2)O medium have buoyant densities in CsCl which are different from walls made by cells grown in H(2)O medium. Cell wall turnover was studied by measuring the change in wall buoyant density after a B. subtilis culture was shifted from growth in D(2)O medium to aeration in H(2)O medium. Walls from the hemispherical caps were isolated after ...