Mutation leading to increased sensitivity to chromium in Salmonella typhimurium.

Abstract

Corwin, L. M. (Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Washington, D.C.), G. R. Fanning, F. Feldman, and P. Margolin. Mutation leading to increased sensitivity to chromium in Salmonella typhimurium. J. Bacteriol. 91:1509-1515. 1966.-Certain deletion mutants including the tryptophan operon in Salmonella typhimurium are unable to utilize several sugars as carbon sources in solid media, although they are able to grow in liquid media with these sugars. The addition of citrate or washing the agar with ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid permits growth on solid media. Analysis of the agar revealed that Fe(3+) and Cr(3+) were present at concentrations of 22 and 75 mum, respectively. The addition of Fe(3+) to liquid media in 0.5 mm concentrations did not inhibit the wild type or the mutants. A similar concentration of Cr(3+) did not inhibit the wild type, but concentrations as low as 0.01 to 0.05 mm inhibited the deletion mutants. Other metals were inhibitory at various concentrations, but none showed any significant differential effects on the mutants and the wild type. The increased sensitivity of the mutants to chromium may be due either to an increased permeability to Cr(3+), resulting in higher effective intracellular concentrations and inhibition of one or more metabolic functions, or to a binding of Cr(3+) to an altered cell wall, resulting in decreased permeability of required substrates.