Summary
A comparison of light and dark short-term incorporation of [14C]-carbon dioxide by Rhodospirillum rubrum grown in turbidostat continuous-flow culture at two different steady states on medium containing malate has shown that the labelling of phosphate esters was the main light-dependent process. Thus, the reductive pentose phosphate cycle appears to be the major pathway of carbon dioxide assimilation in the light under these growth conditions.
The labelling of glutamate was also light-dependent and was most marked in the most rapidly growing steady state culture.
The assimilated [14C]carbon was transferred to metabolites of the tricarboxylic acid cycle, particularly C4-dicarboxylic acids, and the transfer involved additional carboxylations which were not light-dependent. The activity of these reactions accounted for initial high rates of carbon dioxide assimilation in the dark.
In the dark assimilated [14C]carbon accumulated in succinate.
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Slater, J.H., Morris, I. The pathway of carbon dioxide assimilation in rhodospirillum rubrum grown in turbidostat continuous-flow culture. Archiv. Mikrobiol. 92, 235–244 (1973). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00411204
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00411204