Bacterial endospore dormancy and resistance properties depend on the relative dehydration of the spore core, which is maintained by the spore membrane and its surrounding cortex peptidoglycan wall. During spore germination, the cortex peptidoglycan is rapidly hydrolyzed by lytic enzymes packaged into the dormant spore. The peptidoglycan structures in both dormant and germinating Bacillus anthra...

Colicin M was earlier demonstrated to provoke Escherichia coli cell lysis via inhibition of cell wall peptidoglycan (murein) biosynthesis. As the formation of the O-antigen moiety of lipopolysaccharides was concomitantly blocked, it was hypothesized that the metabolism of undecaprenyl phosphate, an essential carrier lipid shared by these two pathways, should be the target of this colicin. Howev...

It is believed that the plastids in green plants lost peptidoglycan (i.e., a bacterial cell wall-containing d-amino acids) during their evolution from an endosymbiotic cyanobacterium. Although wall-like structures could not be detected in the plastids of green plants, the moss Physcomitrella patens has the genes required to generate peptidoglycan (Mur genes), and knocking out these genes causes...

The Pseudomonas aeruginosa outer membrane was isolated with attached peptidoglycan and fractionated with Triton X-100, ethylenediaminetetraacetate, and lysozyme. The data suggest that major outer membrane proteins F, H2, and I are noncovalently associated with the peptidoglycan.

During spore formation in Bacillus subtilis, cell division occurs at the cell pole and is believed to require essentially the same division machinery as vegetative division. Intriguingly, although the cell division protein DivIB is not required for vegetative division at low temperatures, it is essential for efficient sporulation under these conditions. We show here that at low temperatures in ...

The formation of cell envelope components of Bifidobacterium bifidum subsp. pennsylvanicus was studied by measuring the incorporation of [(3)H]glycine, (14)C-labeled fatty acids, and N-benzoyl-[(14)C]glucosamine into the membrane protein, membrane lipids, and cell wall peptidoglycan, respectively. Inhibition of peptidoglycan synthesis by antibiotics (penicillin G, vancomycin, d-cycloserine, and...

Escherichia coli contains multiple peptidoglycan-specific hydrolases, but their physiological purposes are poorly understood. Several mutants lacking combinations of hydrolases grow as chains of unseparated cells, indicating that these enzymes help cleave the septum to separate daughter cells after cell division. Here, we confirm previous observations that in the absence of two or more amidases...

MreB, the bacterial actin homologue, is thought to function in spatially co-ordinating cell morphogenesis in conjunction with MreC, a protein that wraps around the outside of the cell within the periplasmic space. In Caulobacter crescentus, MreC physically associates with penicillin-binding proteins (PBPs) which catalyse the insertion of intracellularly synthesized precursors into the peptidogl...