The specific properties of S-layer proteins from three different Bacillus stearothermophilus strains revealing: oblique, square, or hexagonal lattice symmetry were preserved during growth in continuous culture on complex medium only under oxygen-limited conditions in which glucose was used as the sole carbon source. When oxygen limitation was relieved, amino acids became metabolized, cell density increased, and different S-layer proteins from wild-type strains became rapidly replaced by a new common type of S-layer protein with an apparent subunit molecular weight of 97,000 which assembled into an identical oblique (p2) lattice type. During switching from wild-type strains to variants, patches of the S-layer lattices characteristic for wild-type strains, granular regions, and areas with oblique lattice symmetry could be observed on the surface of individual cells from all organisms. The granular regions apparently consisted of mixtures of the S-layer proteins from the wild-type strains and the newly synthesized p2 S-layer proteins from the variants. S-layer proteins from wild-type strains possessed identical N-terminal regions but led to quite different cleavage products upon peptide mapping, indicating that they are encoded by different genes. Chemical analysis including N-terminal sequencing and peptide mapping showed that the oblique S-layer lattices synthesized under increased oxygen supply were composed of identical protein species.
