Demonstration and preliminary characterization of a regular array in the cell wall of Clostridium difficile |
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Authors: | Tomio Kawata Aya Takeoka Kenji Takumi Kuniyoshi Masuda |
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Institution: | Department of Food Microbiology, Tokushima University School of Medicine, Tokushima 770, Japan |
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Abstract: | Abstract The presence of a regular array (RA) was demonstrated on the outer layer of the cell wall in Clostridium difficile GAI0714 by electron microscopy. The RA was composed of squarely arranged subunits with a center-to-center spacing of about 8.2 nm. The outer wall layer carrying the RA was isolated from the wall fragments of early log-phase cells by autolysis. The outer wall layer was composed of two main proteins with apparent M rs of about 45 000 and 32 000 upon sodiumdodecylsul-fate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE). Similar RAs were also present in the cell walls of the other 9 strains of C. difficile . These strains were divided into two groups on the basis of the wall protein composition: one containing M r 45 000–47 000 and 32 000 proteins and the other containing M r 42 000 and 38 000 proteins. |
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Keywords: | Clostridium difficile cell wall regular array |
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