Abstract
The marine pseudomonad bacterium PL1 contains an intracellular pool of free amino acids which consist mainly of glutamate with small amounts of glutamine and aspartate when grown in a nutrient medium containing 0.2 M NaCl. When the NaCl concentration of the growth medium is increased to 0.8 M, proline becomes a major component of the intracellular pool together with glutamate—at this molarity and under suitable nutrient conditions these amino acids comprise 20% of total bacterial amino acid nitrogen. When grown in a nutrient growth medium containing a constant level of NaCl, the intracellular pool size can vary by a factor of 4 depending on the concentration of carbon and nitrogen in the medium. Experiments show that the amino acid pool can act as a nitrogen reserve but has little function as a carbon reserve. At high NaCl concentrations there is a marked dependence for growth on the presence of sufficient potassium in the medium. However, no correlation between K+ and glutamate concentration in either nitrogen or K+-limited cultures has been found. None of the enzymes associated with glutamate biosynthesis was influenced by NaCl levels between 0.2 and 0.5 M. Neither Na+ or K+ stimulated the activity of these enzymes when tested in vitro.
Published Version
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