Reaction of Penicillin with the Staphylococcal Cell Wall

Abstract

IT has been demonstrated previously^1–3 that contact between resting sensitive staphylococci and penicillin results in a small firmly-bound uptake of the drug by the bacteria. When washed suspensions of Staphylococcus aureus with radioactive penicillin attached were ruptured by shaking with fine glass beads, subsequent radiometric assay of the deposit and supernatant after centrifuging suggested that the penicillin had been concentrated within the cytoplasm of the cell⁴. However, when unlabelled organisms were disrupted by the same method, it was found in a large number of experiments that while very little, if any, of the penicillin-binding capacity of the intact cell could be detected in the non-dialysable fraction of the cytoplasm, a larger percentage was frequently found in the cell-wall fraction than could be accounted for by the few intact bacteria present.