Mellersh A, Clark A, Hafiz S
Br J Vener Dis. 1979 Feb;55(1):20-3. doi: 10.1136/sti.55.1.20.
Saliva was found to be a powerful and specific inhibitor of Neisseria gonorrhoeae. Although 28 other species of bacteria were tested, including Neisseria meningitidis, Neisseria pharyngis var flava, Neisseria lactamica, and Neisseria catarrhalis, we failed to find any others sensitive to saliva under similar conditions. The physical properties of the inhibitory substance indicated that it might be salivary alpha-amylase. To test this hypothesis alpha-amylase was extracted from saliva and was shown to have a high antigonococcal activity. Hog pancreas alpha-amylase also showed strong antigonococcal activity, thus the observations indicate that for the strains we tested alpha-amylase is inhibitory to gonococci. This observation indicates that either the gonococcal outer cell wall contains some unique lipopolysaccharides or that the gonococcus is unusually dependent on the integrity of these moieties. Whichever speculation proves to be true it indicates a need for a careful study of the gonococcal cell wall.
唾液被发现是淋病奈瑟菌的一种强大且特异性的抑制剂。尽管对包括脑膜炎奈瑟菌、黄色咽炎奈瑟菌、乳酸奈瑟菌和卡他莫拉菌在内的其他28种细菌进行了测试，但我们未能在类似条件下发现其他对唾液敏感的细菌。抑制物质的物理特性表明它可能是唾液α淀粉酶。为了验证这一假设，从唾液中提取了α淀粉酶，并证明其具有高抗淋球菌活性。猪胰腺α淀粉酶也表现出很强的抗淋球菌活性，因此这些观察结果表明，对于我们测试的菌株，α淀粉酶对淋球菌具有抑制作用。这一观察结果表明，要么淋球菌外细胞壁含有一些独特的脂多糖，要么淋球菌异常依赖于这些部分的完整性。无论哪种推测被证明是正确的，都表明需要对淋球菌细胞壁进行仔细研究。
