The maintenance of bacterial cell shape and integrity is largely attributed to peptidoglycan, a highly cross-linked biopolymer. The transpeptidases that perform this cross-linking are important targets for antibiotics. Despite this biomedical importance, to date no structure of a protein in complex with an intact bacterial peptidoglycan has been resolved, primarily due to the large size and fle...

Joachim Meißner, Uwe J. Jürgens, and Jürgen Weckesser Institut für Biologie II, Mikrobiologie, der Albert-Ludwigs-Universität, Schänzlestraße 1, D-7800 Freiburg i.Br., Bundesrepublik Deutschland Z. Naturforsch. 43c, 823-826 (1988); received June 30, 1988 Chromatium tepidum, Thiocysüs violacea, Ectothiorhodospira vacuolata, Chromatiaceae, Ectothiorhodospiraceae, Peptidoglycan Rigid layer (sodium...

UNLABELLED Most bacterial cells are enclosed in a single macromolecule of the cell wall polymer, peptidoglycan, which is required for shape determination and maintenance of viability, while peptidoglycan biosynthesis is an important antibiotic target. It is hypothesized that cellular enlargement requires regional expansion of the cell wall through coordinated insertion and hydrolysis of peptido...

Gram-negative bacteria possess stress responses to maintain the integrity of the cell envelope. Stress sensors monitor outer membrane permeability, envelope protein folding, and energization of the inner membrane. The systems used by gram-negative bacteria to sense and combat stress resulting from disruption of the peptidoglycan layer are not well characterized. The peptidoglycan layer is a sin...

Peptidoglycan fragments released by Neisseria gonorrhoeae contribute to the inflammation and ciliated cell death associated with gonorrhea and pelvic inflammatory disease. However, little is known about the production and release of these fragments during bacterial growth. Previous studies demonstrated that one lytic transglycosylase, LtgA, was responsible for the production of approximately ha...

The peptidoglycan-recognition protein LCa (PGRP-LCa) is a transmembrane receptor required for activation of the Drosophila immune deficiency pathway by monomeric Gram-negative peptidoglycan. We have determined the crystal structure of the ectodomain of PGRP-LCa at 2.5-A resolution and found two unique helical insertions in the LCa ectodomain that disrupt an otherwise L-shaped peptidoglycan-dock...

Peptidoglycan from Staphylococcus aureus mobilized CD66b in human neutrophils but did not upregulate surface activation markers in eosinophils. In addition, Toll-like receptor 2, implicated in the recognition of peptidoglycan, was detected on the surface of resting neutrophils but not on eosinophils. These findings suggest roles for neutrophils but not eosinophils in innate recognition of pepti...

The cell wall peptidoglycan of LactobaciZZus acido$hiZus strain 63 AM Gasser has been shown to turn over rapidly during balanced exponential growth and recovery from amino acid deprivation. In contrast, turnover of either pulselabeled or extensively labeled peptidoglycan of Streptococcus fuecalis ATCC 9790 was not detected by the same method and experimental conditions. In S. faecalis, peptidog...

L-forms are cell wall-deficient variants of otherwise walled bacteria that maintain the ability to survive and proliferate in absence of the surrounding peptidoglycan sacculus. While transient or unstable L-forms can revert to the walled state and may still rely on residual peptidoglycan synthesis for multiplication, stable L-forms cannot revert to the walled form and are believed to propagate ...