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Oxygen Metabolism in Lactobacillus plantarum

¹ Department of Biochemistry, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina 27710

ABSTRACT

Lactobacillus plantarum, although able to grow in the presence of oxygen, was found to retain a completely anaerobic metabolism. Thus, L. plantarum did not consume detectable amounts of oxygen and did not contain measureable amounts of those enzyme activities which serve to protect anaerobic cells against the lethality of O₂^– and of H₂O₂. Superoxide dismutase, catalase, and peroxidase appeared to be absent from these cells. L. plantarum was unusually resistant towards hyperbaric oxygen, indicating that it did not reduce oxygen even when exposed to high concentrations of this gas. A photochemical reaction mixture, known to generate O₂^–, did kill L. plantarum. The lethality was diminished by superoxide dismutase, catalase, or mannitol and was augmented by H₂O₂. This suggests that the lethal agent generated in the photochemical system was primarily OH., generated from the reaction of O₂^– with H₂O₂.

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