Glucose metabolism in Acetobacter aceti

Acetobacter aceti NCIB 8554 grows on a minimal medium with ethanol but not with glucose as carbon and energy source. Addition of glucose to a wild type culture on ethanol has no influence on growth of the organism. Growth of a glucose sensitive mutant A5 is inhibited by the addition of glucose until all glucose has disappeared from the medium. In order to determine the routes by which glucose is metabolised in wild type and mutant, radiorespirometric, enzymatic, and uptake experiments have been performed. For the radiorespirometric experiments of the "continuous substrate feeding" type as apparatus has been constructed. Of the glucose entering the cells about 30% is excreted as gluconate and 6% metabolised with liberation of C-1 as CO2. The rest is accumulated intracellularly. No differences were found between wild type and mutant. Under different growth conditions and with different enzymatic assay methods no pyruvate kinase activity (EC 2.7.1.40) could be detected. This might explain the inability of A. aceti to grow on glucose.