Altered peptidoglycan structure in a pneumococcal transformant resistant to penicillin

Abstract

A series of isogenic pneumococcal transformants differing in their levels of penicillin resistance and containing altered penicillin-binding proteins were compared for their cell wall structures by using a recently developed technique that can resolve the peptidoglycan stem peptides of Pneumococcus strains to over 40 components (J.F. Garcia-Bustos, B.T. Chait, and A. Tomasz, J. Biol. Chem. 32:15400-15405). The stem peptides from the highly resistant transformants differed strikingly from those of the susceptible recipient strain, and the peptide patterns were almost identical to that of the DNA donor. Four peptides representing the major components of susceptible cell walls. A remarkable com..