130 



THE ACTINOMYCETES, Vol. I 



Autotrophy among Actinomycetes 

 As pointed out previously (Chapter 3), 

 Beijerinck and van Delden in 1903 isolated 

 from the soil a nonmotile coccus and a rod- 

 shaped organism that grew in pure mineral 

 solution and produced, after 2 or 3 weeks, a 

 snow-white, nonwettable surface pellicle. 

 They suggested that the cultures grew at the 

 expense of the traces of volatile organic 

 compounds found in the laboratory air. 

 Later, Beijerinck (1913, 1914) reported that 

 the cultures could also utilize H2 in the at- 

 mosphere. The two cultures were described 

 as ActinohaciUus (Bacillus) oligocarhophilus 

 and as Actinobacillus ( = Streptothrix Cohn) 

 paulotrophus, a thread-forming organism. In 

 1922, Lantzsch cultivated, from a surface 

 pellicle produced spontaneously on a cjuartz 

 suspension in water, a culture similar to 

 Beijerinck's Bac. oligocarhophilus and found 

 it to be closely related to the actinomycetes. 

 He designated it as Actinomyces oligocarho- 

 philus. CO was used as a source of C. 



Kober (1929) obtained, from an enriched 

 culture of algae heated for 5 minutes at 71° 

 C, a pure culture of a white actinomycete 

 which was related to the cultures of Bei- 

 jerinck and Lantzsch. Krassilnikov (1938) 

 placed the culture among the proactino- 

 mycetes (Nocardia) . 



Ware and Painter (1955) isolated from 

 clear sewage, on a mineral medium with 

 KCN as the only C, X, and energy source, 

 a "strongly autotrophic" actinomycete. 



Takamiya and Tubaki (1956) observed 

 an actinomycete growing on a phosphate 

 solution. The culture could be grown in a 

 pure mineral solution. The culture grew 

 chemo-autotrophically, utilizing the process 

 of H2 oxidation in order to assimilate CO 2 . 

 It was named *S'. autoirophicus. Three other 

 cultures of chemo-autotrophic actinomy- 

 cetes were isolated. Hirsch demonstrated 

 that a culture of Nocardia, N . petroleophila, 

 grew slowly but steadily upon a purely 

 mineral medium in contact with laboratory 

 air. No growth took place without CO 2 . By 

 means of tracer technique, it was established 

 that the CO2 is assimilated and incorporated 

 in the cell substance. As energy sources for 

 the CO 2 assimilation, the organism uses 

 volatile, aliphatic hydrocarbons with 9 to 

 14 carbon atoms. These are incompletely 

 oxidized, with the uptake of oxygen and 

 release of only small amounts of CO2 . 



Metabolism of Aerobic Actinomycetes 



Garner et al. (1950) have shown that high- 

 streptomycin-yielding strains had a lower 

 respiratory activity (slower use of glucose 



LACTIC ACID 



80 5 



■ - s- 

 - 20 



96 

 HOURS 



Figure 62. Utilization of glycerol and sodium lactate b\' *S'. venezuelae (Reproduced from: Gottlieb, 

 IJ. and Legator, M. Mycologia 45: 512, 1953). 



