Inhibition of Growth and Cell Wall Synthesis of Mycobacterium smegmatis by D‐Threonine

Spheroplast formation of Mycobacterium smegmatis and morphological aspects of their reversion to the bacillary form

“…The bacteria belonging to the genus Mycobacterium are resistant to cell wall-destroying enzymes, possibly because these cells possess thick and rigid cell walls containing large amounts of lipid. At present, as described by Rastogi and Venkitasubramanian (4), there are two ways to prepare cell wall-deficient forms of mycobacteria: the first is to treat the cells with inhibitors of cell wall synthesis to make them sensitive to wall-destroying enzymes (1,2,5,8), and the second is to isolate lysozyme-sensitive mutants (7). However, no reports have mentioned the viability and stability of the spheroplasts induced by these methods.…”