Interactions between lateral wall elongation and septum formation during cell cycle in Klebsiella pneumoniae

In this study, we evaluated the effect of three different beta-lactams on peptidoglycan synthesis and cell division of synchronously growing rods of the pH conditional morphology mutant MirM7 and its parental strain MirA12. We have found that mecillinam, when added at varying times to synchronous MirM7 rods during the first 30 min of the cell cycle, inhibits peptidoglycan synthesis but has no effect when added afterwards while cells form septa and divide. Addition to the above cells of piperacillin for 30 min from the very beginning of the cell cycle did not cause any delay in cell division. On the contrary, when this antibiotic was added to synchronous cells for 15 min, starting 35 min after the beginning of the cell cycle, cell division occurred with an approximate 15-min delay. Addition of cefaloridine to synchronous cells at varying times during the cell cycle invariably caused a delay in cell division equal to the time during which the antibiotic was maintained in the culture. These findings are interpreted as supporting a previous hypothesis for shape regulation in bacterial rods and are discussed in terms of the interaction between lateral wall elongation and septum formation during the cell cycle.