Alkaline degradation of the phosphomucopolysaccharide from cell walls of Bacillus megaterium KM

Abstract

Bacterial cell shows the capacity to undergo substantial changes in structure and functioning in response to changes in the growth environment. This characteristic is ecologically, most advantageous to the organism and is of considerable evolutionary significance because in nature, bacteria inhabit environments that markedly fluctuate. This chapter focuses on bacterial wall. The walls of bacteria are complex structures containing several heteropolymers. The chapter considers only those changes in bacterial wall content and composition that result from changes in genetic expression. Essentially, walls of bacteria are highly variable structures and are capable of undergoing radical change in response to relatively small changes in the growth environment. Bacteria are essentially grown in an open system, in a continuous-flow culture system so that one can obtain truly steady state conditions in which the environment and the properties of the organisms in the culture do not change substantially with time. The application of the chemostat type of continuous culture, which has the capacity to provide both controlled environments and new environments, facilitates the acquisition of reliable data and new data. The chapter considers this reliable data and attempts to assess the extent to which bacterial walls can change phenotypically.