Growth Factors for Corynebacterium diphtheriae Strain Dundee

Abstract

SUMIMARY:Investigations were kontinued on the nature of the growth factor requirements of Corynebacterium diphtheriae gravis, strain Dundee. Hypoxanthine, or adenine + guanine, or adenine + xanthine, were found capable of replacing concentrates of the growth factor from liver and yeast.Nucleoside and nucleotide fractions, prepared from electrophoretically-purified ribonucleic acid, were unable to replace the free purine bases. A purine extract was obtained from an active fish-liver concentrate by copper precipitation. In this extract, a large amount of hypoxanthine and a smaller amount of xanthine were found by chromatography to be the major purine constituents; traces of adenine and guanine were also detected. Chromatographic fractionation and spectrophotometric examination of the fractions confirmed the presence of hypoxanthine and xanthine, whose concentrations were estimated.The purine extract supported less growth than the original fish-liver concentrates.Growth on the purine extract could be reproduced by a mixture of hypoxanthine and xanthine at an equivalent concentration

The Biosynthesis and Interconversion of Purines and Their Derivatives1

“…Brown and Roll (26) have summarized the ability of several microbial species to convert adenine and guanine to polynucleotide purines. Other examples have been published more recently (40,90,126,158,219). Four groups are represented as summarized below:…”

Biosynthesis of Purine and Pyrimidine Nucleotides in Pasteurella multocida.

“…For example, in Escherichia coli (1,2) and yeasts (3), synthesis de novo takes place while in Tetrahymena gelei (4) and Corynebacterium diphtheriae ( 5) bases or nucleosides must be supplied exogenously. The observations summarized below support the inclusion of Pasteurella inultocida in the first group of microorganisms.…”