Extracellular hydrogenase from photosynthetic bacterium, Rhodospirillum rubrum

With Rhodospirillum rubrum, hydrogenase was found to exist partly as an extracellular enzyme in the culture medium. After 4-day cultivation, the total activity and the specific activity of the enzyme in the medium were about 10 times and 230 times as high as those in the crude extract obtained from disrupted cells. The time course for the production of hydrogenase during cultivation was studied.