Interrelationships between the tricarboxylic acid and glyoxylate cycles studied with bacterial auxotrophs.

Abstract

An autotroph of Escherichia coli, E26-6, which is unable to grow aerobically in a simple mineral-salts medium with either acetate, glutamate, isocitrate, or any one of the C4dicarboxylic acid intermediates of the tricarboxylic acid cycle as sole carbon source, has been investigated. The mutant is able to grow, however, in a mineral-salts acetate medium supplemented with any one of the above acids. The specific activities of the tricarboxylic acid cycle and glyoxylate bypass enzymes, with the exception of alpha-ketoglutaric dehydrogenase, which is greatly impaired in the auxotroph, were found to be essentially the same in both the parent and the mutant. Thus, the glyoxylate bypass alone is not capable of supplying sufficient C4intermediates to allow the growth of E. coli on acetate. Further, there appear to be no other metabolic pathways leading to C4production, which are of major metabolic significance during growth on acetate, other than the tricarboxylic and glyoxylate cycles. Finally, in conjunction with the tricarboxylic acid cycle, the malate synthetase and isocitritase reactions provide a mechanism which enables E. coli to grow on a medium containing acetate as the sole carbon source.