An autolysin obtained from culture fluid of Staphylococcus aureus strain 8507 was purified 3,000-fold. One milligram of this preparation (S-5DL) will solubilize 12 mg of cell wall in 1 hr. The major activity is N-acetylmuramyl-l-alanine amidase. Recovery of lytic activity in the purified preparation was repeatably only 20% of the starting level. This suggests that other cell wall lytic enzymes ...

Mutants of Streptococcus pneumoniae that contain active autolysin and yet cannot be induced to lyse during treatment with penicillin (Lyt+Tol+ mutants) have been described. We have now shown that these mutants are temperature dependent (32 degrees C); at 37 degrees C these bacteria underwent penicillin-induced lysis. In addition, mutants at the lysis-permissive temperature showed the so-called ...

Dodecylglycerol has a minimum inhibitory concentration of 4 micrograms/ml compared to 9 micrograms/ml for monolaurin (dodecanoylglycerol) with Streptococcus faecium ATCC 9790 as the test organism. The greater potency of dodecylglycerol can be correlated to its greater retention by the cell. Gram-positive bacteria were more susceptible than Gram-negative bacteria to dodecylglycerol. The antibact...

Choline-containing pneumococcal cell wals are sensitive to autolysin, whereas ethanolamine-containing walls are not. Bacteria were labeled with radioactive peptidoglycan precursors while growing either in choline- or in ethanolaminecontaining media. Subsequently, the labeled cells were allowed to grow for four to five generations in nonradioactive medium supplemented with the alternative amino ...

Host- and phage-coded cell wall hydrolases have been used to fight Streptococcus pneumoniae growing as planktonic cells in vitro as well as in animal models. Until now, however, the usefulness of these enzymes in biofilm-grown pneumococci has gone untested. The antipneumococcal activity of different cell wall hydrolases produced by S. pneumoniae and a number of its phages was examined in an in ...

Staphylococcus aureus has gained much attention in the last decade as it is a major cause of the Urinary Tract Infection in Diabetic patients. The Extended Spectrum β-Lactamases (ESβL) producers are highly resistant to several conventional antibiotics. This limits the therapeutic options.Hence efforts are now taken to screen few medicinal plants, which are both economic and less toxic. Among th...

The gene encoding a 102 kDa autolysin has been cloned from an expression library of Listeria monocytogenes EGD genomic DNA, using a direct screening protocol. The encoded protein has two domains, an N-terminal enzymic domain showing a high level of homology to the amidase domain of the major autolysin (atl) of Staphylococcus aureus, and a C-terminal, putative cell-wall-binding domain containing...

The optimum conditions for autolysis and autoplast formation in Clostridium acetobutylicum P262 have been defined. Autolysis was optimal at pH 6.3 in 0.04 M sodium phosphate buffer, and the bacterium produced latent and active forms of an autolytic enzyme. The ability of cells to autolyze decreased sharply when cultures entered the stationary phase. Autoplasts were induced by 0.25 to 0.5 M sucr...

Ralston, Doris J. (University of California, Berkeley), and Mary McIvor. Cell-wall lysins of Staphylococcus aureus strains induced by specific typing phages. J. Bacteriol. 88:667-675. 1964.-At least 12 different phages induced the formation of soluble lysins (separable from the phages by ultracentrifugation). The lysins caused rapid clearing of heat-killed cells of all strains of Staphylococcus...