The Influence of Oxygen Tension on the Respiration of Pneumococci (Type I)

Abstract

Decrease of oxygen tension in the tissues occurs in every stasis of blood and lymph. Determinations of the oxygen tension in fluids taken from an inflamed area in the course of an experimentally-produced sterile inflammation showed, for example, after twenty-four hours an oxygen pressure of 70 mm.Hg., after forty-five hours of 40 mm.Hg. and after sixty-five hours an oxygen pressure of 20 mm.Hg. (Kempner and Peschel, 1930). This fact suggests the question: What influence have relatively low oxygen pressures upon the vital reactions of pathogenic bacteria? This question can only be answered experimentally by a method which makes it possible to measure quantitatively the energyyielding processes in bacteria under a constantly maintained equilibrium between reacting cells, culture medium and gas milieu. Some older investigations mentioned in the bacteriologic literature (Kolle and Wassermann, 1929), which were not based on this constantly-maintained equilibrium, are of little value for the solution of this particular problem. They concern themselves more with the diffusion of different gases in different test vessels and culture media than with the effect of these gases upon the reactions of the organism under experimental observation. Then, too, these studies were limited to the acceleration and retardation of bacterial growth, which often is not influenced by factors which inhibit or increase other specific cell reactions, as, for example, lactic or butyric acid fermentation, the forming of hydrogen peroxide and respiration.

The Effect of Oxygen Tension on the Oxygen Uptake of Lake Bacteria

“…Rashevsky (1933) points out that the diffusion coefficient of oxygen for different membranes may differ. Is it possible that such differences in membrane permeability may account for the higher oxygen tensions required for the maximum respiration of Azotobacter (Burk, 1930b, Meyerhof andSchulz, 1932), Rhizobia (Georgi and Wilson, 1933) pneumococci (Schlayer, 1936) and certain other bacteria? According to Schlayer (1936) Type I Pneumonococci require from 20 to 30 per cent oxygen for optimum respiration although the respiration of Escherichia coli, Pseudomona8 pyocyanea, Vibrio metchnikovi and Staphylococcus aureus is independent of the oxygen tension down to less than one per cent oxygen.…”