Maintenance requirements for bacteria growing on C1‐compounds

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Abstract
The maintenance coefficient, ms (mmol substrate/g cell dry wt hr), of two distinct groups of C1‐utilizing bacteria has been determined by growing the organisms in an aerobic continuous culture limited by different C1 growth substrates. For growth on methanol, ms = 2.5 ± 0.3 for Pseudomonas C; 3.9 ± 0.7 for Ps. methylotropha (these bacteria utilize methanol via the ribulose monophosphate pathway of formaldehyde fixation) 1.5 ± 0.2 for Pseudomonas 1, and 2.3 ± 0.4 for Pseudomonas 135 (the latter bacteria utilize C1‐compounds via the serine pathway). For growth on formaldehyde, ms = 1.5 ± 0.3 for Pseudomonas 1 and 2.7 ± 0.7 for Pseudomonas 135, whereas on formate the values for ms are 1.0 ± 0.2 and 4.4 ± 1.3; respectively. Although the maintenance coefficients did not differ systematically between the two groups of bacteria, the maintenance requirements per generation of the serine pathway bacteria were considerably higher (8.7 vs. 3.9) owing to their slower growth rate. The maximum molar yield values, YMmax (g cell dry wt/mol substrate utilized), corrected for the maintenance energy of bacteria which utilize C1‐compounds via the ribulose monophosphate pathway averged 10.1 when grown on methanol, while the values for bacteria which use the serine pathway averaged 13.5. On formaldehyde an average value of 11.5 is obtained and on formate the average value was 7.4 in the serine pathway bacteria.