Bacillus subtilis lysis

Bacilysin is a hydrophilic substance formed by certain aerobic sporeforming bacteria which causes lysis in cultures of growing staphylococci. Abraham and his collaborators have described its production by aerated cultures of a strain of Bacillus subtilis, and they showed that on hydrolysis (6m HCl) it gave L-alanine and L-tyrosine, although it did not contain a tyrosine residue. On the basis of physiochemical measurements the unusual dipeptide structure (96) was assigned to bacilysin. In later work a further substance (A A 1), identical with the C-terminal amino acid of bacilysin, was isolated from the culture fluid of Bacillus subtilis strains and the same amino acid has been obtained from stirred cultures of Streptomyces griseoplanus by Neuss and his collaborators and named anticapsin. Detailed analysis of the products of acid hydrolysis of anticapsin or A A 1 showed them to contain both L-tyrosine and m-L-tyrosine in a ratio of 9 2. 

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