Studies on the chemoautotrophic iron bacterium Ferrobacillus ferrooxidans. II. Manometric studies.

Studies of the obligate chemoautotrophic iron bacteria have been largely descriptive in character. This situation is not due to any lack of interest in the physiology and biochemistry of these bacteria, but rather to the inability to grow them in large numbers, and the attendant problem of harvesting cells free from the voluminous precipitate of iron that accompanies growth. Silverman and Lundgren (1959) described an improved medium for the propagation of large numbers of physiologically active cells of Ferrobacillus ferrooxidans, and a method of harvesting cells virtually free from precipitated iron. The present report concerns manometric studies of some of the characteristics of this chemoautotroph and its iron-oxidizing system using intact cells.