Many glucosamine residues of the pneumococcal peptidoglycan (PG) are not acetylated, which makes the PG resistant to lysozyme. A capsular type III mutant with an inactivated pgdA gene (encoding the peptidoglycan N-acetylglucosamine deacetylase A) became hypersensitive to exogenous lysozyme and showed reduced virulence in the intraperitoneal mouse model.
No takes yet. Share an insight, caveat, or question.
Vollmer et al. (2002) studied this question.
Synapse has enriched 5 closely related papers on similar clinical questions. Consider them for comparative context: