Chemical structure of the cell wall of Mycobacterium tuberculosis var. bovis, strain BCG.
BCG cell walls contain approximately 30% free lipids like other mycobacterial cell walls. The insoluble skeleton of the cell wall is made up of two covalently linked polymers, a peptidoglycan and an arabinogalactan mycolate, with which are associated non peptidoglycan amino acids and a glucan. We present data on two structural features: 1. The "non peptidoglycan" amino acids; they form two kinds of compounds: peptide chains which can be solubilized by proteolytic enzymes and a trypsin-chymotrypsin insensitive poly-alpha-L-glutamic acid. 2. Presence of meso-DAP-meso-DAP1) interpeptide linkages in the peptidoglycan: this new type represents at least 50% of the interpeptide linkages of the cell wall of the BCG strain.
D000596:Amino Acids / Q000032:analysis; D001500:BCG Vaccine; D002473:Cell Wall / Q000032:analysis*; D002918:Chymotrypsin; D006003:Glycogen / Q000032:analysis; D009163:Mycobacterium bovis / Q000032:analysis*; D009171:Mycolic Acids; D010457:Peptidoglycan / Q000032:analysis; D011135:Polysaccharides, Bacterial / Q000032:analysis; D014357:Trypsin
D000596:Amino Acids; D001500:BCG Vaccine; D009171:Mycolic Acids; D010457:Peptidoglycan; D011135:Polysaccharides, Bacterial; D006003:Glycogen; D002918:Chymotrypsin; D014357:Trypsin