Summary: Washed suspensions of a laboratory strain of Haemophilus pertussis did not take up oxygen with, or ferment, five carbohydrates, nor did the same strain produce detectable acid from fourteen carbohydrates during growth. Of twenty-one amino-acids tested only proline, serine, alanine, aspartic and glutamic acids were oxidized by washed suspensions at an approciable rate. The first four of these were oxidized to completion but with glutamic acid only 80% of the theoretical uptake of oxygen occurred; however, in the presence of dinitrophenol it, too, was oxidized to completion. Cells oxidizing glutamic acid in the presence of arsenite produced α-ketoglutaric acid.
During the logarithmic growth of H. pertussis glutamic acid disappeared from Cohen & Wheeler’s medium. The organism grew in a Cohen & Wheeler’s medium in which the Casamino acids had been replaced by glutamic acid. These results suggest that glutamic acid can serve as energy, carbon and nitrogen source for H. pertussis
Some of the findings were confirmed with freshly isolated strains.
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