Abstract
Among the earliest knowledge about microbes is the fact that cells, suspended and incubated under unfavourable conditions for growth and anabolism, disintegrate. Indeed autolysates of yeasts and other cells were some of the earliest sources of soluble enzymes, and did trojan work in the heroic days of the investigations of intermediary carbohydrate metabolism. With the development of the electron microscope and consequent ultrastructural awareness, cell walls were recognized, isolated and their chemistry studied. Autolysis could then be seen to be due to dissolution of the walls. As the chemical structure of the polymers making up the walls was elucidated, it became possible to designate the bonds specifically hydrolysed by various autolytic enzymes and thus to account for the solubilization of the walls and the disintegration of the cells. Since the supportive polymers in microbial cell walls are often either complex, such as, for example, are the peptidoglycans of bacteria or, consist of a number of polymers interacting to provide mechanical support for the cell as in some microfungi, autolysins with a variety of bond specificities are often to be found in the same cell. It is not always possible to distinguish which autolysin is responsible for any particular effect, or to exclude the necessity for the combined action of more than one enzyme.
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Rogers, H.J., Perkins, H.R., Ward, J.B. (1980). The bacterial autolysins. In: Microbial Cell Walls and Membranes. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-6014-8_11
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