One of the two layers of the E. coli B cell wall is shown to possess the chemical composition typical of a gram-positive microorganism. It is this layer which lends support and strength to the entire cell wall structure, its rigidity depending up on the incorporation of building blocks made up from alanine, glutamic acid, diaminopimelic acid, muramic acid and glucosamine.
Phage enzyme is an agent capable of removing these stabilizing units from the „gram-positive “ layer, thereby causing it to collapse. Penicillin appears to prevent the biosynthetic incorporation of the same stabilizing units into growing cell walls, thus producing eventually the effect of cell wall disruption in a basically similar way.
The rather manifold aspects of these findings are discussed at some length.
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