Abstract
The biochemical characteristics of the enzymes postulated to participate in the lysis of Streptococcus pneumonioe infected by phages have been studied in our laboratory in some detail (García et al., 1984, 1987; Romero et al., 1990). Independently of their enzymatic specificity, either amidases or lysozymes, most of the lytic enzymes found in pneumococcus and its bacteriophages share important properties, especially the absolute requirement for choline-containing teichoic acid in cell wall substrate (a peculiar characteristic of the pneumococcal peptidoglycan) for activity (Höltje and Tomasz, 1975). It has been postulated that this choline dependence of the pneumococcal lysins may have served as an element of selective pressure during evolution that should have preserved the structures of these enzymes (García et al., 1988 a).
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García, P. et al. (1993). Molecular Characteristics of the Cell Wall Lytic Enzymes Coded by Pneumococcal Phages. In: de Pedro, M.A., Höltje, JV., Löffelhardt, W. (eds) Bacterial Growth and Lysis. Federation of European Microbiological Societies Symposium Series, vol 65. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-9359-8_31
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-9359-8_31
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