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Role of Reduced Exogenous Organic Compounds in the Physiology of the Blue-Green Bacteria (Algae): Photoheterotrophic Growth of an "Autotrophic" Blue-Green Bacterium

^a University of Tennessee-Oak Ridge Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, and Biology Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37830
The University of Texas Marine Science Institute, Port Aransas, Texas 78373
^c Department of Oceanography, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida 32306

ABSTRACT

The unicellular blue-green bacterium Agmenellum quadruplicatum strain BG-1 was found to be capable of rapid photoheterotrophic growth but unable to grow in the dark on a variety of reduced organic substrates. The generation time on glycerol was 12 h, and on CO₂, 3 h. Glycerol carbon was converted into cellular carbon with a very high efficiency. This high efficiency of carbon conversion, the action spectrum for growth on glycerol, cell pigmentation, gas exchange measurements, and immediate ability of photoheterotrophically grown cells to evolve O₂ (upon the addition of CO₂) suggest the involvement of both photosystems I and II of photosynthesis during photoheterotrophic growth.

¹ Present address: Department of Microbiology, University of Florida, Gainesville, Fla. 32601.