No abstract

No abstract

Interest in the problem of bacterial variation during the last decade has brought the heterogeneous group of green-producing streptococci under scrutiny. Studies of the reciprocal relationship between colony form (rough or smooth) and virulence, antigenic structure, opsonic index, sensitizing property, varying cataphoretic potentials and the production of filterable forms have brought forward much new knowledge of variation within this group of organisms. In many of these reports the occurrence of morphologically variant cells is mentioned as an incidental observation. Such variant cells are often diphtheroids, frequently diplococci and occasionally swollen, nodular rods. The origin of the distinct cell types, their essential properties, their interrelationships, and their fate have not been clearly recorded.Pleomorphic green-producing streptococci upon primary isolation and after extended cultivation exhibit chains of flattened diplococci of greatly varying sizes, huge coccal and constricted forms and spindle-shaped rods. The unstable form of the organisms suggests that such pleomorphic strains may be especially suitable for the study of the origin of variant cells, their distinctive properties and relationships, as well as of the occurrence of filterable forms in streptococci.Sixty-one strains of highly pleomorphic green-producing streptococci were isolated from human throats during the early,

No abstract