Bacteria's different ways to recycle their own cell wall

摘要: The ability to recover components of their own cell wall is a common feature bacteria. This was initially recognized in the Gram-negative bacterium Escherichia coli, which recycles about half peptidoglycan its during one doubling. Moreover, E. coli shown grow on provided as nutrients. A distinguished recycling enzyme required for both, recovery sugar N-acetylmuramic acid (MurNAc) and growth external MurNAc, MurNAc 6-phosphate (MurNAc 6P) lactyl ether hydrolase MurQ. We revealed however, that most bacteria lack murQ ortholog instead harbor pathway, absent channels directly biosynthesis. "anabolic pathway" bypasses initial steps de novo synthesis, including target antibiotic fosfomycin, thus providing intrinsic resistance antibiotic. oral pathogen Tannerella forsythia auxotrophic apparently depends anabolic pathway synthesize by scavenging debris other In contrast, Gram-positive genes, but mostly contain or two orthologs. Quantification 6P accumulation mutant cells mass spectrometry allowed us demonstrate first time do recycle peptidoglycan. had been questioned earlier, since turnover products accumulate spent media Gram-positives. showed, these fragments are recovered nutrient limitation, prolongs starvation survival Bacillus subtilis Staphylococcus aureus. Peptidoglycan however differs, either cleaved exhaustively monosaccharide building blocks taken up (B. subtilis) disaccharides released recycled involving novel phosphomuramidase (MupG; S.aureus). B. also teichoic acids, covalently bound (wall acids; WTAs), recycled. During phosphate sn-glycerol-3-phosphate phosphodiesterase GlpQ specifically degrades WTAs subtilis. S. aureus, used scavenge sources. Thus, although generally wall, they apply distinct strategies breakdown reutilization fragments. review summarizes our work this topic funded between 2011 2019 DFG within collaborative research center SFB766.