The inhibition by various agents of the lysis of Bacterium coli by glycine

1. The lysis of Bact. coli by glycine is inhibited completely by various treatments: (a) by heating the bacteria at 65 or 100° C.; (b) by the action of Cr, Fe, and Al salts at concentrations which cause agglutination of the organisms, (c) by various heavy metals, including particularly Hg and Ag salts, at low concentrations (d) by lethal concentrations of formaldehyde and phenol. 2. The lysis is not inhibited by sodium fluoride, potassium cyanide, or sodium monoiodoacetate at concentrations which suppress the action of certain enzymes. 3. This evidence on the whole supports the rejection of the view that a simple physical process is responsible for lysis by glycine, but does not yet enable us to distinguish between the other possible mechanisms of the lysis because the treatments used might equally interfere either with the structural proteins of the bacteria, or with the hypothetical enzymes which might be concerned in producing the lysis.