The capsular polysaccharide (CPS) and the O-side-chain of the lipopolysaccharide (LPS) of Acetobacter methanolicus MB 58/4 (IMET 10945) have been shown to contain the same disaccharide repeating unit, namely, ----2)-beta-D-Galf-(1----3)-beta-D-Galp-(1----. Degradation of the CPS and the LPS with the bacteriophage Acml gave fragments built up of 1-5 repeating units; the octasaccharide prepondera...

An open reading frame was found 214 bp downstream of the cellulose synthase operon of Acetobacter. The encoded amino acid sequence was found to be similar to some beta-glucosidases (G3ases). We detected G3ase activity in the culture medium and analysis of the N-terminal amino acid sequence showed that this gene encodes the enzyme. Therefore, it is possible that this region is a gene cluster for...

Microorganisms capable of producing xy]itol from Darabitol were screened for. Of the 420 strains tested, three bacteria, belonging to the genera Acetobacter and Gluconobacter, produced xylitol from D-arabitol when intact cells were used as the enzyme source. Among them, Gluconobacter oxydans ATCC 621 produced 29.2 g!1 xylitol from 52.4 g!1 D-arabitol after incubation for 27 h. The production of...

Acetobacter xylinum is a bacterium that can synthesize cellulose when grown in an undefined medium containing glucose. We developed a defined minimal medium for A. xylinum that contains 1% glucose, 0.1% NH(4)Cl, 0.115% citric acid, 0.33% Na(2)HPO(4), 0.01% KCl, 0.025% MgSO(4). 7H(2)O, and 7.5 mg of nicotinamide per liter which both allows cellulose synthesis and can be used to isolate a variety...

Recently, it was shown that a cellulose-negative mutant (Cell) ofAcetobacterxylinum ATCC 23769 carried an insertion of an indigenous transposable element (IS1031A) about 500 bp upstream of the bcs operon, required for cellulose synthesis. Here we show that Cell can be complemented by wild-type DNA covering the insertion point. Nucleotide sequencing of this region revealed the presence of two op...

Acetobacter suboxydans has a powerful system for the oxidation of ethanol to acetic acid, as might be expected from the fact that the acetic acid bacteria have long been used for the commercial production of vinegar. Alcohol dehydrogenase in soluble extracts has been found to be DPlSspecific1 (1). It has now been observed that either TPN or DPN can be used as coenzyme for the oxidation of aceta...

The oxidation of various inositols (hexahydroxycyclohexanes) and quercitols (pentahydroxycyclohexanes) and their derivatives by resting cells of Acetobacter suboxydans has been studied by Chargaff and his students (1, 2), who found that the specificity exhibited by the organism toward the cyclitols studied was not adequately described by the Bertrand-Hudson rules (3) for open chain polyalcohols...

Films and tubes manufactured from cellulose have historically been used in the treatment of renal failure, but their use for this purpose has declined in recent years in favour of films manufactured from synthetic material blends. As the clinical application of cellulose for dialysis declines, new applications for its use are emerging, of which the most promising appears to be the use of microb...