Glycogen of enteric bacteria.

In the course of an investigation of the use of infrared spectrophotometry for bacterial identification (Stevenson and Bolduan, 1952; Levine et al., 1953b), it has been found that a characteristic set of absorption bands appears in the spectra of Enterobacteriaceae and other bacteria under certain cultural conditions. Since this set of bands is common to many organisms, it is important in identification studies. Further work has revealed that these bands are due to a glycogen-like storage polysaccharide. The effects of age, temperature, inoculum density, and medium constituents on the content of this polysaccharide in enteric bacteria, as revealed by infrared spectrophotometry, have been studied, and the results are presented in this paper. Isolations of glycogen-like polysaccharides have been reported from Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Chargaff and Moore, 1944), Neisseria perflava (Hehre and Hamilton, 1948), and Bacillus megaterium (Barry et al., 1952). We have isolated a similar product (which will be referred to as glycogen for brevity) from enteric bacteria and have determined some of its chemical and physical properties.