Isolation and characterization of tricarboxylic acid cycle mutants of Bacillus subtilis

A technique was developed for the detection, on agar, of mutants of Bacillus subtilis that lacked a functional tricarboxylic acid cycle. Mutants devoid of detectable levels of aconitase, isocitric dehydrogenase, alpha-ketoglutarate dehydrogenase, succinic dehydrogenase, fumarase, and malate dehydrogenase have been isolated and characterized. Several mutants with conditionally expressible lesions, including a mutant with a heat-sensitive citrate synthase, have also been isolated. All of the mutants examined express all the biochemical markers normally absent in early-stage sporulation mutants except elastase, and some of these mutants sporulated nearly as well as the prototroph.