[Role of the lysozyme-like enzyme of staphylococci in their pathogenicity]. / O znachenii lizotsimopodobnogo fermenta stafilokokkov v ikh patogennosti

Observations of the authors of the present work permit to put forward the following suppositions on the biological significance of the lysozyme sign included into the number of sign-of the staphylococcus pathogenicity: 1) the action of the lysozyme-like enzyme (LLE) as a facs for increasing the permeability of the cell wall and thus promoting the exit of the "pathogenicity enzymes"; 2) its participation in the growth and division of staphylococci, pointing to the differences in the rate of the growth of the cultures forming and nonforming the LLE; 3) participation of the LLE in the microbial antagonism processes--crude LLE (in the form of lipoproteid complex) stipulated the antimicrobial effect against a number of nonpathogenic microbes. None of these hypotheses can be accepted without further investigations, particularly with the purified enzyme.

[Production of a lysozyme-like enzyme by various representatives of the genus Staphylococcus]. / Produktsiia lizotsimpodobnogo fermenta razlichnymi predstaviteliami roda Staphylococcus

On the basis of studying 855 strains of various staphylococci it was shown that production of a lysozyme-like enzyme (LLE) failed to serve as a characteristic sign for all the representatives of Staphylococcus genus. It was mostly observed in S. aureus (in 85% of the strains). In nonpathogenic strains of S. epidermidis LLE could not be revealed either by the dish or by affine chromatography on chitin; among S. epidermidis, isolated from the patients there were cultures which did or did not form the LLE. Cultures occupying an intermediate position (coagulase-negative or mannite-negative) formed the LLE in 66.9% of cases. It was shown that the virulence and the general biological activity of the lysozyme-positive intermediate strains were higher than in the lysozyme-negative ones.