Figure 1
From: Living with an imperfect cell wall: compensation of femAB inactivation in Staphylococcus aureus
(A) Scanning electron microscopy pictures of cells adhering to Thermanox. The cells of the femAB null mutant AS145 are highly enlarged, while the femAB+ backcross BB1305 and the wild type BB903 show cells of the same size and appearance. The white bar corresponds to 1 μm. (B) Muropeptide pattern. The corresponding cell walls were digested with muramidase and subjected to reversed-phase HPLC. Major muropeptide components are numbered according to de Jonge [56]. Strains BB903 and BB1305 show a muropeptide profile characteristic of wild type S. aureus strains, with the highest peak in the dimeric fraction (peaks 11 and 12) and a high degree of crosslinking (peaks 15 and higher), while AS145 has the highest peak in the monomeric fraction (peaks 1 to 5) and a reduced amount of oligomeric muropeptides [2].