CARBOHYDRATE CONTAINING ANTIGEN FROM THE BACTERIAL AND L FORMS OF PROTEUS

Abstract
An antigen of the somatic type which was found to be particularly concentrated in the bacterial cell wall of a Proteus strain was found to be present in the L form. Although the material was not identified as a structural component of the L form organisms, a few calculations indicate that the reduction in amount of the material found in the L form was of a similar order to the reduction of surface area to volume ratios which occurs when a bacterium is converted to a large body of an L form.