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The staphylococcal pentaglycine side chain of the peptidoglycan is reduced to one glycine in femAB null mutants. This is associated with increased susceptibility to methicillin and to a whole range of unrelated antibiotics as well. Genetic evidence suggests that femAB null mutants are only viable because of a compensatory mutation in an unlinked site.
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Ling et al. (1998) studied this question.
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