The photosynthetic metabolism of acetone by Rhodopseudomonas gelatinosa.

acetol was an intermediate in the metabolism of acetone by an unidentified soil diphtheroid. Because of the divergence of these results from those previously reported for R. gelatinosa, the photosynthetic metaboljsm of acetone was reinvestigated by means of a more direct approach. In addition to the two pathways indicated above, a third variation is postulated in which cleavage of acetone to CZ plus Cl fragments is followed by condensation of the Cl fragment with COZ to form another CZ compound (Equation 3). Of the three pathways under consideration only the first