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Abstract
Studies have been described with a thymine-requiring strain of E. coli. This organism dies in the absence of its requirement. It has been shown that nuclear and cytoplasmic syntheses are no longer balanced under conditions of thymine deficiency and continuing unbalanced synthesis results in the loss of the power to multiply. Thymine deficiency and death of other bacterial strains may be provoked by sulfanilamide in the presence of certain metabolites which then support unbalanced growth. The killing action of low doses of ultraviolet irradiation also appears to depend on growth and may be prevented by inhibiting protein synthesis. It was shown that many bactericidal treatments are similar in that they appear to affect nucleic acid metabolism and to require continuing growth for their lethal actions to be manifest. A selective inhibition of DNA synthesis appears to be capable of inducing death by unbalanced growth.

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