Lactobacilli are normal constituents of the intestinal microbiota, and some strains show the capacity to bind to extracellular matrix proteins and components of the mucosal layer, which represents an adaptation to persist in this niche. A shotgun phage-display library of Lactobacillus casei BL23 was constructed and screened for peptides able to bind to fibronectin and collagen. Clones showing b...

Heat shock of Bacillus subfi/is CU1147, a strain lysogenic for SPpc2, a prophage with a thermosensitive repressor, results in phage induction and subsequent cell lysis. Cloning in Escherichia coli and sequencing of a DNA fragment of prophage SPp led to the identification of blyA, the gene encoding a 367 amino acid polypetide with a molecular mass of 39.6 kDa. Purified BlyA obtained from the E. ...