OCCURRENCE OF LIPOTEICHOIC ACID IN ORAL STREPTOCOCCI

The heterogeneous bacterial group known as oral streptococci was scree ned for the presence of cellular polyglycerolphosphate-containing lipo teichoic acid. This compound was detected in phenol extracts of lyophi lized cells by an immunoassay in which polyglycerolphosphate-specific monoclonal antibody was used, Polyglycerolphosphate- containing lipote ichoic acid occurred in all 86 strains of oral streptococci examined e xcept the Streptococcus mitis and Streptococcus oralis strains, This c onfirms the findings of Rosan (B. Rosan, Science 201:918-920, 1978) an d Hamada et al. (S. Hamada, J. Mizuno, S. Kotani, and M. Torii, FEMS M icrobiol. Lett. 8:93-96, 1980), is consistent with the results of the taxonomic study of oral streptococci performed by Kilian et al. (M. Ki lian, L. Mikkelsen, and J. Henrichsen, Int. J. Syst. Bacteriol. 39:471 -484, 1989), who emended the descriptions of Streptococcus sanguis, S. oralis, and S. mitis, and reflects the phylogenetic relationship amon g S. mitis, S. oralis, and Streptococcus pneumoniae.