[The gas trophicity of pathogenic bacteria]

Yersinia pseudotuberculosis and Listeria have been shown to be capable of assimilating carbon dioxide from the air and using its carbon for the synthesis of biopolymers of the bacterial cell. These microorganisms, the causative agents of saprozoonotic infections, have also been found to be capable of assimilating molecular nitrogen from the air in small amounts. The data on the influence of the growth conditions of the cultures (hydrogen concentration, the presence of carbon dioxide and oxygen, temperature) on the activity of acetylene reduction by microbial cells. At low temperature molecular nitrogen is fixed by Listeria twice as actively as by Y.pseudotuberculosis. Not all bacterial strains under study have been found to be capable of acetylene reduction. The presence of fixed nitrogen in the medium suppresses the process of the reduction of acetylene into ethylene.