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Distribution of a Phosphoenolpyruvate-Dependent Sugar Phosphotransferase System in Mycoplasmas

^a Department of Clinical Microbiology, The Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School, Jerusalem, Israel

ABSTRACT

A survey of 10 mycoplasma strains has shown that their capacity to accumulate radioactivity from -methyl-D-glucopyranoside depends on the activity of a phosphoenolpyruvate-dependent phosphotransferase system (PTS), and that this system endows the organisms with a high affinity for glucose as a fermentation substrate. PTS activity was found in Mycoplasma gallisepticum, M. mycoides var. mycoides, and M. mycoides var. capri, but in none of the fermentative Acholeplasma strains nor in some of the nonfermentative Mycoplasma species. Partial characterization of the PTS of M. mycoides var. capri has shown that, like the PTS of Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus, it is strictly dependent on phosphoenolpyruvate as a phosphoryl donor and on componenets of both the cytoplasm and the membrane.

¹ Permanent address: Department of Biochemistry, State University of New York, Stony Brook, N.Y. 11790.