Repression of Tryptophanase Synthesis in Escherichia coli

Abstract

Beggs, William H. (University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio), and Herman C. Lichstein . Repression of tryptophanase synthesis in Escherichia coli . J. Bacteriol. 89: 996–1004. 1965.—The nature of the glucose effect on tryptophanase in Escherichia coli (Crookes) was investigated to test the catabolite-repression hypothesis. Under static conditions of growth in the presence of 0.005 m glucose, tryptophanase was repressed and remained so upon continued static incubation subsequent to glucose exhaustion. Aeration following glucose exhaustion under static cultural conditions resulted in rapid enzyme synthesis. In the absence of glucose, certain amino acids repressed tryptophanase synthesis early in the growth cycle under aerated conditions. An inverse relationship was observed between the concentration of acid-hydrolyzed casein and the level of tryptophanase. At 3 hr, enzyme activity in cells grown in media containing 0.05% acid-hydrolyzed casein was at least five times that of cells grown in the presence of 1% casein. Addition of 0.005 m d - or l -serine to a 0.05% acid-hydrolyzed casein medium rendered the medium capable of strongly repressing tryptophanase. Glucose-expended medium was prepared by allowing cells to grow and exhaust glucose in static culture. When this expended medium was recovered and inoculated with fresh cells not previously exposed to glucose, tryptophanase synthesis was repressed for a short period in shake culture, but in static culture enzyme synthesis was only slightly affected. When the expended medium was prepared from shake cultures, fresh cells were not repressed strongly when subsequent incubation was carried out aerobically. The tryptophan pool in glucose-repressed cells grown in shake culture was appreciably less than in cells grown in the absence of glucose or in cells undergoing synthesis of tryptophanase after exhaustion of the sugar.