Origin, Development and Significance of L-forms in Bacterial Cultures

Abstract

SUMMARY: Several Gram-negative bacteria produce pleuropneumonia-like (L-) forms, some under ordinary cultural conditions, others only when exposed to abnormal ones. The formation of these bodies starts with the production of small nuclear elements surrounded with a thin cytoplasmic layer; these elements fuse with neighbouring elements and the L-body is complete. Whereas some L-strains reproduce themselves indefinitely, others revert to the bacterial form. Thus the bacterial and the L-forms are now regarded as two different generations of the same organism and my symbiosis theory is abandoned.