Production of Pyruvate from 6-Phospho-gluconate by Bacterial Plant Pathogens and Legume Bacteria

Abstract

IN the course of investigations on the metabolism of phytopathogenic and root-nodule bacteria, it was observed that certain species of the former, and all species tested of the latter group of organisms, produced pyruvate from 6-phosphogluconate, and from glucose-6-phosphate plus triphosphopyridine nucleotide. Accompanying the formation of pyruvate was the appearance of triose phosphate. These results suggested that the 6-phosphogluconate was being metabolized in a manner similar to that reported recently with Pseudomonas saccharophila by Entner and Duodoroff¹ and MacGee and Duodorof², and withP. fluorescens by Wood and co-workers³. These observations were confirmed by the fact that the intermediate in this pathway, 2-keto,3-deoxy,6-phosphogluconate (kindly supplied by Dr. MacGee, of the University of California, Berkeley, Calif.) was also split by cell-free extracts of our cultures to pyruvate and triose phosphate.