Outer Surface of Bacteria

In periodontitis, bacterial cells that no longer survive in the gingival sulcus leave peptidoglycan fragments that may be absorbed into the cytosol of surrounding host cells. Within host cells, peptidoglycan fragments may either be toxic or cause a release of inflammatory mediators (Sect. 13.4.1). 

1 Necessary Basics Elements, Isotopes, Ions, Chemical Reactions, Energy Metabolism, and Bacterial Structures 

Bacteria are simple unicellular organisms that constantly grow. They have a membrane and cell wall. Fimbriae are especially important for bacterial adhesion, a critical factor in dental disease development. Lipopolysaccharide is a covalent lipid and polysaccharide structure that contains unusual saccharides and fatty acids. The lipid is at one end and inserts it into the plasma membrane. LPS is invariably recognized as foreign by receptors on mammalian cells that recognize the unique structure and activate inflammation such as gingivitis. 

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The outer surfaces of bacteria are rich in specialized polysaccharides. These are often synthesized while attached to lipid membrane anchors as indicated in a general way in Eq. 20-20.136/296a One of the specific biosynthetic cycles (Fig. 20-9) that depends upon undeca-prenol phosphate is the formation of the peptidoglycan (murein) layer (Fig. 8-29) of both gram-negative and gram-positive bacterial cell walls. Synthesis begins with attachment of L-alanine to the OH of the lactyl... 

Sodium hypochlorite is also a disinfectant. When you use a liquid bleach solution to wash the bathroom floor or the kitchen counter, you are taking advantage of both the disinfecting and bleaching properties of this chemical. By oxidizing molecules in the outer surfaces of bacteria, a disinfectant is able to disrupt the structure of the cells and kill them. 

Although it would be out of place to give here an extensive account of the surface anatomy of bacteria, current interest in the exact location of compounds in the anatomical components of cells, for example, in membranes, granules, mitochondria, and ribosomes, requires a reasonably precise description of the location of teichoic acids. In its turn, this requires an understanding of the main features of the outer regions of bacteria. Gram-positive bacteria possess a rigid cell-wall which is responsible for... 

The importance of capsular polysaccharides in the immune response to bacterial infection is due to their location on the outer surface of the bacteria. They are at the interface of the many host-bacte-... 

Positively charged photosensitizers, particularly cationic metallophthalocy-anines, have been proved to be most efficient in photodynamic inactivation of both Gram-negative and -positive bacteria. The reason is believed to lie in the electrostatic interaction of cationic photosensitizer with negatively charged sites at the outer surface of the bacterial cell wall, which facilitates the photosensitizer molecule binding to bacterial cells. 

Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) is an integral component of endotoxin found at the outer surface of gram-negative bacteria. This moiety is responsible for... 

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