Centre de Bioingenierie Gilbert Durand, UMR CNRYINSA and Lab. Ass. INRA, lnstitut National des Sciences Appl iq uCes, Complexe Scientifique de Rangueil, 31077 Toulouse cedex 4, France The growth behaviour of AIcaligenes eutrophus on phenol was investigated in continuous cultures to identify the phenomena limiting both growth efficiency and substrate degradation rates. It was shown that the fixe...

of substrates such as glucose, sucrose, butyric, pentanoic and propanoic acids used as carbon sources affect the accumulation and composition of biopolymers in the cell. The maximum polymer production (0.97 g/L) was obtained when 2.0 g glucose/100 mL was used as a substrate. Accumulation of polymer in the cell was 28% (wt/wt) when pentanoic acid was used as substrate. Characterization of the bi...

Conjugal transfer from Escherichia coli to Alcaligenes eutrophus of the A. eutrophus genes coding for plasmid-borne resistance to cadmium, cobalt, and zinc (czc genes) was investigated on agar plates and in soil samples. This czc fragment is not expressed in the donor strain, E. coli, but it is expressed in the recipient strain, A. eutrophus. Hence, expression of heavy metal resistance by cells...