Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) are Gram positive bacteria widely used in the production of fermented food in particular cheese and yoghurts. Bacteriophage infections during fermentation processes have been for many years a major industrial concern and have stimulated numerous research efforts. Better understanding of the molecular mechanisms of bacteriophage interactions with their host bacteria is...

A variety of strains of the genus Lactobacillus was investigated with respect to the structure, softness, and interactions of their outer surface layers in order to construct structure-property relations of the Gram-positive bacterial cell wall. The role of the conformational properties of the constituents of the outer cell-wall layers and their spatial distribution on the cell wall is emphasiz...

Antimicrobial agents that target bacterial cell wall biosynthesis are among the most successful and effective armamentaria against bacterial infections. However, the worldwide spread of antibiotic resistance in bacteria has eroded the clinical efficiency of these drugs and the antimicrobial pipeline continues to be lean. Nevertheless, cell wall biosynthesis of bacteria remains a high interest a...

M icrobial shape, long used as a taxonomic criterion, is genetically determined. But how DNA sequence information is translated into morphology is a seminal question still without a complete answer for any microorganism. Recently, however, when investigators discovered that actin-like proteins are involved in determining bacterial cell shape, they revolutionized the field. This insight provides...

To study what determines the arthritogenicity of bacterial cell walls, cell wall-induced arthritis in the rat was applied, using four strains of Lactobacillus. Three of the strains used proved to induce chronic arthritis in the rat; all were Lactobacillus casei. The cell wall of Lactobacillus fermentum did not induce chronic arthritis. All arthritogenic bacterial cell walls had the same peptido...