The cell wall of Streptococcus faecalis, strain N, has been found to contain two antigenic glycans, a diheteroglycan of glucose and galactose and a tetraheteroglycan of rhamnose, glucose, galactose, and N-acetylgalactosamine. The present report describes the isolation, purification, and structural and immunochemical characterization of the hitherto unknown diheteroglycan. A tentative structure ...

The cell walls of an 80/81 strain of Staphylococcus aureus (NYH-6) contain alanine, glycine, glutamic acid, lysine, muramic acid, glucosamine, and ribitol phosphate. 94 per cent of the phosphorus and 41 per cent of the glucosamine are removed by extraction of the cell walls with hot 5 per cent TCA, but significant amounts of the other constituents are not extracted by this procedure. The residu...

Aromatic constituents of cell walls limit the feeding value of forages, but information is lacking on the sites and types of these constituents that retard biodegradation. A series of cell types in stems and leaf blades of a normal (N) and a brown midrib (bmr) mutant line of pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum (L) R Br) were analyzed by UV absorption microspectrophotometry from freeze-dried bulk w...

We describe preparations of plant cell walls and polysaccharides obtained from plant cell walls that are added to food products for two purposes: as modifiers of food texture and/or as dietary fibres with potential health benefits. Although a number of different types of plant cell walls occur, only some are presently exploited. Commercial ‘fibre preparations’ range from those containing mostly...

Plant cell walls are degraded by glycoside hydrolases that often contain noncatalytic carbohydrate-binding modules (CBMs), which potentiate degradation. There are currently 11 sequence-based cellulose-directed CBM families; however, the biological significance of the structural diversity displayed by these protein modules is uncertain. Here we interrogate the capacity of eight cellulose-binding...

Recent insights into the physical biology of plant cell walls are reviewed, summarizing the essential differences between primary and secondary cell walls and identifying crucial gaps in our knowledge of their structure and biomechanics. Unexpected parallels are identified between the mechanism of expansion of primary cell walls during growth and the mechanisms by which hydrated wood deforms un...

Mutanolysin biosynthesis and pigment production in Streptomyces globisporus ATCC 21553 were stimulated by adding bacterial cell walls to the medium. The increased bacteriolytic activity in the supernatant correlated with an increased de novo synthesis of mutanolysin and was between 4- and 20-fold higher than in cultures grown without bacterial cell walls. The increase in mutanolysin synthesis w...

Cell walls isolated from competent streptococci (group H strain Challis) were shown to bind more homologous and heterologous deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) than noncompetent walls. Heat- and alkali-denatured DNA was not bound by either wall preparation. Pretreatment of cell walls with cetyltrimethylammonium bromide sharply increased the binding of DNA but did not increase transformation of whole c...