The Cell Wall of Streptococcus pneumoniae

Since the last revision of this article (2006), a number of important publications have appeared in the literature, the inclusion of which made it necessary to limit the topics of this article to information that has bearing on the biochemical and genetic aspects of covalently linked components of the pneumococcal cell wall. Information on proteins noncovalently attached to the cell wall, cell walls and phase variation (Jing Li and Jing-Ren Zhang, in press), and inflammatory activity of cell walls (Allister J. Loughran, Carlos J. Orihuela and Elaine I. Tuomanen, in press) are reviewed separately.