Changes in composition of peptidoglycan during maturation of the cell wall in pneumococci.

An experimental system which allows the selective reisolation and structural analysis of a newly made (nascent) segment of pneumococcal peptidoglycan at various times after its incorporation into the preexisting old cell wall was developed. Age-related changes were observed in each one of the major nine wall peptide components resolvable by a high-performance liquid chromatography method. The nascent wall segment (made in 1.7% of a generation time) contained 60% of its peptides as the alanyl-isoglutamyl-lysine tripeptide monomer, 12% as the directly cross-linked peptide dimer (tri-tetra peptide), and a total of 2% as the two major peptide trimers. In the mature wall segment reisolated 1 h later (1 generation time), the proportion of the tripeptide monomer dropped to 40%, while the major dimer and trimers increased to 23% and 8%, respectively. The age-related structural changes were completely inhibited by cefotaxime. The observations indicate that covalent bonds in the structure of pneumococcal peptidoglycan undergo substantial secondary rearrangements after incorporation into the preexisting wall. These changes are likely to be related to the movement of the conserved cell wall segments within the cell surface during cell division.