Summary
Conditions for cultivating two extremely thermophilic bacteria, isolated from the hot springs of Yellowstone National Park, are described. One of these strains, Thermus aquaticus, can be grown on either succinate or pyruvate as the best substrates at 78° C. Acetate, glucose, and sucrose can also be utilized at this temperature. The temperature optimum was found to be 70° C, but the bacterium can be adapted to grow on succinate or pyruvate at 80° C. The other strain, YT-G has its growth optimum at 80° C and the maximum temperature was found to be 84° C. At this temperature pyruvate is the only substrate which gives good results, while glucose cannot be used as a carbon source. At 70° C, however, the yields obtained with glucose as a substrate are better than those with pyruvate at 80° C.
Experiments with C14-labelled glucose have shown that the inability to utilize glucose at 80° C is not due to an inactivation of the initial steps of the glycolytic pathway. Phosphorylated sugars and a compound corresponding to α-glycerophosphate were found to be formed, the latter being accumulated as a side product of normal glycolysis. The enzymes leading to this product, and those which are involved in the conversion of pyruvate were found to be functioning at 80° C, while intermediate enzymes of the glycolytic pathway are assumed to be less heat resistant, thus blocking the utilization of glucose at this temperature. The ability of strain YT-G to grow on glucose is, however, promptly resumed if the temperature is lowered.
Lysozyme treatment was found to lead to a complete conversion of T. aquaticus cells to spheroplast while cells of strain YT-G are only slightly altered by this procedure.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Allwood, M. C., Russell, A. d.: Mechanism of thermal injury in St. aureus. Appl. Microbiol. 15, 1266–1269 (1967).
Amelunxen, R., Lins, M.: Comparative thermostability of enzymes from B. stearothermophilus and B. cereus. Arch. Biochem. 125, 765–769 (1968).
Bausum, H. T., Matney, T. S.: Boundary between bacterial mesophilism and thermophilism. J. Bact. 90, 50–53 (1965).
Brock, T. D.: Life at high temperatures. Sciences 158, 1012–1019 (1967).
— Freeze, H.: Thermus aquaticus gen. n. and sp. n., a non-sporulating extreme thermophile. J. Bact. 98, 289–297 (1969).
Bubela, B., Holdsworth, E. S.: Protein synthesis in B. stearothermophilus. Biochim. biophys. Acta (Amst.) 123, 376–389 (1966).
Dowben, R. M., Weidenmüller, R.: Adaptation of mesophilic bacteria to growth at elevated temperatures. Biochim. biophys. Acta (Amst.) 158, 255–261 (1968).
Freeze, H., Brock, T. D.: Characterization of a thermostabile fructose-1,6-diphosphate aldolase from T. aquaticus. Bacteriol. Proc., Abstracts of the 69th ASM Meeting, Miami Beach, Fla., P 55, p. 125 (1969).
Friedman, S. M.: Protein-synthesizing machinery of thermophilic bacteria. Bact. Rev. 32, 27–38 (1968).
Hais, I. M., K. Macek: Paper chromatography, p. 304, 648. New York-London: Academic Press 1963.
Heinen, W., H. P. Klein: Lipid synthesis in an extremely thermophilic bacterium. Bacteriol. Proc., Abstracts of the 69th ASM Meeting, Miami Beach, Fla., P 31, p. 122 (1969).
Kates, M., Palameta, B., Joon, C. N., Kushner, D. J., Gibbons, N. E.: Aliphatic diether analogs of glyceridederived lipids. IV. The occurence of di-o-dihydrophytyl-glycerol ether containing lipids in extremely halophilic bacteria. Biochemistry 5, 4092–4099 (1966).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Heinen, W. Growth conditions and temperature-dependent substrate specificity of two extremely thermophilic bacteria. Archiv. Mikrobiol. 76, 2–17 (1970). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00409310
Received:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00409310