[Use of transformation for studying the nature of formation of stable bacterial L forms]

The authors obtained a stable variant of the L-forms of Bacillus subtilis capable of exponential growth of the minimal and synthetic medium. An electron-microscopic study of different stages of the L-form formation was carried out by the method of ultra-thin sections. A possibility was shown of the transfer of the L-form formation sign by the method of transformation. DNA isolation from the L-forms by soft lysis considerably facilitated and simplified the genetic analysis of the L-form formation by the transformation method.