The oxidative assimilation of acetate byAstasia longa and the regulation of cell respiration

✍ Scribed by Wilson, Barry W.

• Publisher: Wiley (John Wiley & Sons)
• Year: 1963
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 712 KB
• Volume: 62
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0095-9898
• DOI: 10.1002/jcp.1030620108

✦ Synopsis

The gradual recognition that carbon sources play a dual role in cell metabolism, donating electrons for cell reductions and molecules for cell syntheses led to experiments of Barker ('36) and others (Doudoroff, '40; Winder, '40; Clifton, '46; Syrett, '51; Blumenthal et al., '57; Wilson and Danforth, '58) which showed that a single carbon source could serve both purposes at the same time, some of the molecules being oxidized, some being incorporated into cell constituents. It was found that the oxygen consumptions due to the utilization of oxidizable substrates were usually less than would have occurred if the substrates had been completely oxidized. The endogenous respirations were thought to be a major problem in the analyses of such data. Manometric and tracer methods (Barker, '36; Syrett, '51; Blumenthal, '57; Wilson and Danforth, '58) have been employed in a n effort to ascertain whether the endogenous respirations continued in the presence of exogenous substrates. These two approaches seemed to yield conflicting results (Blumenthal et al., '57; Danforth and Wilson, '61).

This report stems from a n investigation of the oxidative assimilation of acetate by Astasia longa, a close relative of Euglem, and a reexamination of the significance of the endogenous respiration in determining their extent of oxidation of exogenous oxidizable carbon sources.