Recent Developments in the Study of Lysozymes

Lysozymes are widely distributed enzymes. They split the chemical skeleton of bacterial cell walls by hydrolysing the β (1 → 4) linkages between N-acetylmuramic acid and N-acetylglucosamine. the amino acid sequence of lysozyme from hen's egg-white is known (129 amino acid residues). Lysozymes of different origins frequently differ in their primary structures although they exhibit qualitatively the same biological activity. The results obtained from investigations with lysozymes allow conclusions to be drawn regarding the chemical structure of the “backbone” of bacterial cell walls.