375 
Biffen . — A Fat-Destroying Fungus . 
mixture of monobutyrine and water was added 1 . Twelve 
hours later the mixture smelt strongly of butyric acid and 
gave an acid reaction with litmus. 
These experiments leave little doubt that a fat-splitting 
enzyme is present in the Fungus. 
Like other enzymes, it proved to be precipitated by the 
addition of an excess of absolute alcohol, as a flocculent 
precipitate. On drying this precipitate over calcium chloride, 
a whitish-grey powder was obtained which was readily 
soluble in cold water. A solution of the enzyme obtained 
in this way gave the same results, when tested with coco-nut 
oil and monobutyrine, as the original extract. 
The course of action of the enzyme is first to emulsify 
the fat, and then to split it into a fatty acid and glycerine, 
which substance, as has often been shown, can be utilized 
by plants as a food-material and converted into sugars. 
Whether the fatty acid can be utilized in a similar way is 
doubtful, for the coco-nut milk becomes more and more acid 
as the mycelium increases. The presence of oil in the 
mycelium itself offers the same difficulty as the presence 
of oil in the cotyledons of germinating Ricinns did to Sachs. 
Whether the oil can pass directly through the walls, as Sachs 
supposed was the case, or whether it is re-formed from the 
products of its decomposition, cannot at present be deter- 
mined 2 . Certainly the fatty acid cannot diffuse as a soap, 
as is the case with the fatty acids formed by the steapsin of 
the pancreatic juice, for the reaction of the infected coco-nut 
endosperm and milk is invariably acid. 
The disappearance of the oil from the endosperm when 
attacked by this Fungus suggests the interesting question 
whether the coco-nut embryo on germination can utilize the 
oil in a similar manner by the formation of a lipase. 
1 Gerard, 1. c. 
2 Cf. Green, 1. c. 
Botanical Laboratory, Cambridge, 
May, 1899 . 
C C 2 
