scholarly journals The importance of being cross-linked for the bacterial cell wall

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Garima Rani ◽  
Issan Patri

AbstractThe bacterial cell wall is primarily composed of a mesh of stiff glycan strands cross-linked by peptide bridges and is essential for safeguarding the cell. The structure of the cell wall has to be stiff enough to bear the high turgor pressure and sufficiently tough to ensure protection against failure. Here we explore the role of various design features of the cell in enhancing the toughness of the cell wall. We explain how the glycan strand length distribution and the degree of cross-linking can play a vital role in ensuring that the cell wall offers sufficient resistance to propagation of cracks. We suggest a possible mechanism by which peptide bond hydrolysis can also help mitigate this risk of failure. We also study the reinforcing effect of MreB on the cell wall and conclude that the cross-linked structure of the cell wall plays the more important role in safeguarding against mechanical failure due to cracking.

2002 ◽  
Vol 22 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 209-222 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bénédicte Flambard

1991 ◽  
Vol 260 (2) ◽  
pp. G213-G219 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. A. DeLa Cadena ◽  
K. J. Laskin ◽  
R. A. Pixley ◽  
R. B. Sartor ◽  
J. H. Schwab ◽  
...  

The plasma kallikrein-kinin system is activated in Gram-negative sepsis and typhoid fever, two diseases in which bacterial products have been shown to initiate inflammation. Because a single intraperitoneal injection of bacterial cell wall peptidoglycan-polysaccharide polymers from group A steptococci (PG-APS) into a Lewis rat produces a syndrome of relapsing polyarthritis and anemia, we investigated changes in the role of the kallikrein-kinin system in this model of inflammation. Coagulation studies after injection of PG-APS revealed an immediate and persistent decrease in prekallikrein levels. High-molecular-weight kininogen levels decreased significantly during the acute phase and correlated with the severity of arthritis. Factor XI levels were decreased only during the acute phase. Antithrombin III levels remained unchanged, indicating that neither decreased hepatic synthesis nor disseminated intravascular coagulation caused the decreased plasma contact factors. Plasma T-kininogen (an acute phase protein) was significantly elevated during the chronic phase. PG-APS failed to activate the contact system in vitro. Thus the kallikrein-kinin system plays an important role in this experimental model of inflammation, suggesting that activation of this system may play a role in the pathogenesis of inflammatory bowel disease and rheumatoid arthritis in which bacterial products might be etiologically important.


Biochemistry ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 39 (9) ◽  
pp. 2164-2173 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ernst Schönbrunn ◽  
Susanne Eschenburg ◽  
Florian Krekel ◽  
Karolin Luger ◽  
Nikolaus Amrhein

1967 ◽  
Vol 167 (1009) ◽  
pp. 439-440 ◽  

Collins & Richmond (1962) have drawn attention to the close structural similarity between the reactive groups of penicillin and the reactive groups of N -acetylmuramic acid and, knowing that penicillin interferes with the synthesis of the bacterial cell wall, they have suggested that the antibiotic activity might possibly be explained in terms of a confusion between these two molecules by the cell wall synthesizing enzymes. Although recent work (Anderson, Matsukashi, Haskin & Strominger 1965; Wise & Park 1965; Tipper & Strominger 1965) has shown that penicillin appears to act by blocking the peptide cross-linking stage of bacterial cell wall synthesis rather than the polysaccharide polymerization stage, we wondered if lysozyme might bind penicillin purely on the basis of its structural similarity to N -acetylmuramic acid, a molecule for which lysozyme must have a specificity since it is part of the substrate of lysozyme.


2013 ◽  
Vol 16 (6) ◽  
pp. 760-766 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy K Lee ◽  
Kerwyn Casey Huang

1987 ◽  
Vol 53 (8) ◽  
pp. 1893-1897 ◽  
Author(s):  
M C van Loosdrecht ◽  
J Lyklema ◽  
W Norde ◽  
G Schraa ◽  
A J Zehnder

2014 ◽  
Vol 28 (S1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lauren Genova ◽  
James Melnyk ◽  
Vishnu Mohanan ◽  
Catherine Grimes

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