There has been no attempt to produce a comprehensive review of peptide
transport by micro-organisms for over ten years. Prior to that, several
reviews presented a balanced description of transport and utilization
of peptides by micro-organisms. From this nutritional standpoint, the
essential, complementary role played by intracellular peptidases was also
considered. In addition, attention was devoted to the particular opportunities
conferred by peptide uptake compared with amino-acid transport,
and to the advantages in possession of both types of systems. Overall, these
reviews presented a largely phenomenological description of a developing
research area (Payne, 1975, 1976, 198Od; Payne and Gilvarg, 1978;
Matthews and Payne, 1980).