CURRENT LITERATURE 



NOTES FOR STUDENTS 



Metabolism of fungi. — Recently a number of papers on the metabolism 



of fungi have appeared, which, although they represent various phases of the 



subject, may be noted here in a collective review. Since Pasteur's discovery 



of the biological method for separating stereoisomeric components from their 



racemic compounds, the study of the action of fungi on compounds having 



asymetric carbon atoms has been of great interest. The work of the earlier 



investigators, like that of Le Bell, Leukowitsch, Schulze and Bosshard, 



and others, was concerned chiefly with the chemical aspects of the subject, 



with the purpose of resolving racemic compounds into their optically active 

 components. 



Taking up the subject more in its biological aspect, for the purpose of 

 determining whether any fungi are able to utilize both components of racemic 

 compounds to an equal extent, Pringsheim 1 has investigated the action of 

 16 fungi and 2 bacteria on leucine and glutaminic acid, from which Schulze 

 and Bosshard 2 had obtained rf-leucine and /-glutaminic acid by the action 

 of Penicillium. Pringsheim found that in all cases both of the components 

 o* the amino-acids used were partly consumed by the organisms. In about 

 one-half of the experiments both components were consumed to an equal 

 degree, so that the recovered portions of the acids were optically inactive, 

 ft the remaining instances one isomer was consumed to a greater extent than 

 the other, the naturally occurring component being the one consumed most 

 readily in all such cases. 



Herzog and his students have taken up the study of the action of fungi 

 on a-/-oxyacids and d-/-amino-acids in order to gain a knowledge of the process 

 involved in the utilization of one of the isomers of the inactive forms of these 

 acids.^ The experimentation was carried out both with living fungi and with 

 niycelia killed by various means. In the experiments with living material 

 the fungi were grown in flasks of suitable culture media until the carbon 

 dioxide production became constant. A definite quantity of the acid to be 

 tested was then introduced into the flasks and the subsequent carbon dioxide 

 output determined. At the end of the experiment the residual acid was 



Aminosa 



& ... . — Aminosauren 



p »be. Zeitschr. Physiol. Chem. 65:96-109. 1910. 



2 Schulze, E., und Bosshard, E., Untersuchu.^. — ._ 



seiche bei der Zersetzung der Eiweissstoffe durch Salzsaure und durch Barytwasser 

 entstehen. II. Zeitschr. Physiol. Chem. 10:134-145- *&86. 



339 



