VI. OCCURRENCE IN NATURE 417 



Bacterial action on wet fish meal has been employed in the preparation 

 of vitamin K concentrates.^- ^^ The vitamin Ko isolated from putrified fish 

 meaP^ has also been obtained from a culture of Bacillus hrevis}"^ Experi- 

 mental animals for vitamin K studies must be prevented from obtaining 

 the vitamin from food in which bacterial action may have synthesized the 

 vitamin, and from coprophagy. 



The remarkably high vitamin K content of certain microorganisms raised 

 the question of the role of antihemorrhagic quinones in their metabolism. 

 Woolley and McCarter^^ found a microorganism, Johne's bacillus, which 

 responded with increased growth when vitamin K, phthiocol, or methyl- 

 naphthoquinone was added to the synthetic medium. Using another strain 

 of this bacillus Glavind and Dam^^ were unable to demonstrate any growth 

 effect from methylnaphthociuinone or phthiocol. Hand'" investigated the 

 requirement of Mycobacterium tuberculosis for vitamin K and found evidence 

 of a growth-depressing action. Kimler-^ found bacteriostatic action against 

 this organism to be exhibited by methylnaphthohydroquinone diphosphate, 

 2-methyl-4-amino-l-naphthol and the bisulfite addition compound. The criti- 

 cal concentrations were 100, 1, and 2 y per milliliter, respectively. The 

 antihemorrhagic naphthociuinones can act as non-specific antibiotics in 

 some cases, as shown by Armstrong et alP It is obvious from the above 

 facts that microbiological methods for estimating vitamin K are not very 

 feasible. For references to other recent reports on miscellaneous effects of 

 vitamin K on caries, tumors, and microorganisms, the reader is referred 

 to a review by Dam.-* 



Inhibition of bacterial action in the digestive tract by ingestion of sul- 

 fonamides causes a decrease in the synthesis of vitamin K and also of pro- 

 thrombin if the vitamin K intake is inadequate to meet the needs of the 

 animal. Black et al}^ found that sulfaguanidine or sulfasuxidine added to a 

 synthetic vitamin K-free diet of rats caused a relatively rapid onset of 



16 R. W. McKee, S. B. Birikley, D. W. MacCorquodale, S. A. Thayer, and E. A. Doisy, 



/. Am. Chem. Soc. 61, 1295 (1939). 

 i«S. B. Binkley, D. W. MacCorquodale, S. A. Thayer, and E. A. Doisy, /. Biol. 



Chem. 130, 219 (1939). 

 " M. Tishler and W. L. Sampson, Proc. Soc. Exptl. Biol. Med. 68, 136 (1948). 



18 D. W. Woolley and J. R. McCarter, Proc. Soc. Exptl. Biol. Med. 45, 357 (1940). 



19 J. Glavind and H. Dam, Physiol. Plantarum 1, 1 (1948). 

 ="> C. N. Hand, Nature 161, 1010 (1948). 



^^ A. Kimler, /. Bacterial . 60, 469 (1950). 



22 W. D. Armstrong, W. W. Spink, and J. Kahnke, Proc. Soc. Exptl. Biol. Med. 53, 

 230 (1943). 



23 H. Dam, Ann. Rev. Biochem. 20, 265 (1951). 



2* S. Black, R. S. Overman, C. A. Elvehjem, and K. P. Link, J. Biol. Chem. 145, 137 

 (1942). 



