Bacterial cell wall-induced arthritis: Chemical composition and tissue distribution of four Lactobacillus strains

To study what determines the arthritogenicity of bacterial cell walls, cell wall-induced arthritis in the rat was applied, using four strains of Lacto bacillus. Three of the strains used proved to induce chronic arthritis in t he rat; all were Lactobacillus casei. The cell wall of Lactobacillus fermen tum did not induce chronic arthritis, All arthritogenic bacterial cell wall s had the same peptidoglycan structure, whereas that of L. fermentum was di fferent. Likewise, all arthritogenic cell malls were resistant to lysozyme degradation, whereas the L. fermentum cell wall was lysozyme sensitive. Mur amic acid was observed in the liver, spleen, and ly-mph nodes in considerab ly larger amounts after injection of an arthritogenic L. casei cell wall th an following injection of a nonarthritogenic L. fermentum cell wall. The L. . casei cell wall also persisted in the tissues longer than the L. fermentu m cell wall. The present results, taken together with those published previ ously, underline the possibility that the chemical structure of peptidoglyc an is important in determining the arthritogenicity of the bacterial cell w all.