[Effect of light intensity on the biosynthesis of bacteriochlorophylls in Rhodomicrobium vannielii and...

The activity of aminolevulinate-synthetase in crude extracts of R. vannielii was determined. Its properties are very similar to those of the enzyme from R. palustris. With increasing light intensity on cultures of both microorganisms, their specific growth rates increases and the concentration of bacteriochlorophyll decreases. ALA-synthetase exhibits a dual-pattern; its activity remains at a high constant level up to 4 x 10(4) erg cm-2 seg-1, decreasing at higher light intensities (Figures 1 and 2). The activity of succinil-CoA-synthetase of both microorganisms and ALA-dehydrase of R. palustris remain constant over the entire range of light intensities used, but the ALA-dehydrase of R. vannielii shows the same dual-pattern as ALA-synthetase (Table 1), namely a constant high level at the lower light intensities, decreasing at the higher ones. With dialysis the activity of ALA-synthetase of both microorganisms decreases only in extracts from low light intensity grown bacteria, while it did not decrease in extracts from bacteria grown at high light intensities.