Pyruvate oxidase is a determinant of Avery's rough morphology.

ABSTRACT: In pioneering studies, Avery et al. identified DNA as the hereditary material (A. T. Avery, C. M. MacLeod, and M. McCarty, J. Exp. Med. 79:137-158, 1944). They demonstrated, by means of variation in colony morphology, that this substance could transform their rough type 2 Streptococcus pneumoniae strain R36A into a smooth type 3 strain. It has become accepted as fact, from modern textbook accounts of these experiments, that smooth pneumococci make capsule, while rough strains do not. We found that rough-to-smooth morphology conversion did not occur in rough strains R36A and R6 when the ability to synthesize native type 2 capsule was restored. The continued rough morphology of these encapsulated strains was attributed to a second, since-forgotten, morphology-affecting mutation that was sust

SUBMITTER: Belanger AE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC532437 | biostudies-literature | 2004 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature