Chemical Composition and Antigenic Structure of Cell Walls of Corynebacterium, Mycobacterium, Nocardia, Actinomyces and Arthrobacter

Abstract

SUMMARY: A comparison has been made between the chemical composition of the cell walls of strains from the genera Corynebacterium, Mycobacterium, Nocardia, Actinomyces and Arthrobacter, and the antigenic composition of the same cell-wall fractions as judged by an agglutination test. A common antigenic component was identified in all those strains of corynebacteria, mycobacteria and nocardias which have arabinose and galactose as their principal cell-wall sugars. Some strains of corynebacteria, and 3 strains of Nocardia pelletieri which have a different pattern of cell-wall components, appear to lack this cell-wall antigen. The antigen was not present in the cell walls of 8 strains of actinomyces and 6 of arthrobacter. Seven of the 8 strains of actinomyces had a cell-wall composition identical with that previously described for Actinomyces israelii, and these 7 strains formed a homogeneous group serologically: the other actinomyces strain differed in cell-wall wall composition and its cell walls did not agglutinate with the ‘israelii’ serum, nor did those of any of the 6 strains of arthrobacter, although some of the latter resemble A. israelii in cell-wall structure. These results show that the antigenic studies tended to confirm relationships suggested by cell-wall composition alone, especially among corynebacteria, nocardias and mycobacteria: they also suggest that Corynebacterium as at present constituted is a mixture of species of diverse origin.