Comparative ultrastructure of Mycobacterium leprae and Mycobacterium lepraemurium cell envelopes

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Abstract
The structural properties of the cell envelopes of M. leprae and M. lepraemurium were investigated by freeze-fracture, freeze-etching and negative-staining techniques. Freeze-fracture split the cell wall and exposed the internal features of the peptidoglycolipid mycosidic filamentous network. The cell membrane was also split into 2 asymmetric faces. The external fracture face was characterized by linear arrays of intramembranous particles; the protoplasmic fracture face showed randomly distributed clusters of particulate entities. Comparative analysis of the ultrastructural features observed in M. leprae and M. lepraemurium indicated that the organization of the cell envelope in these 2 spp. differed particularly with respect to the amount and complexity of the superificial peptidoglycolipid and mycosidic integument, which is poorly developed in the mycobacterium responsible for human disease.