Effects of Oxygen on Propionibacterium shermanii Grown in Continuous Culture

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Abstract
Growth yields, enzyme activities, cytochrome concentrations and the rates of product formation were determined in P. shermanii cultures grown in a chemostat with lactate as the energy source at various concentrations of O2. O2 was toxic when its partial pressure in the inflowing gas was just sufficient to give measurable dissolved O2 concentration in the culture, when it inhibited lactate oxidation and NADH oxidase activity. Below this O2 concentration, P. shermanii behaved as a facultative anaerobe. The adaptation from anaerobic metabolism to aerobic metabolism was complex. Low partial pressures of O2 led to decreased cytochrome and membrane-bound dehydrogenase activities and molar growth yield. Above an O2 partial pressure of 42 mmHg in the inflowing gas stream, these changes were reversed, leading to an aerobic type of metabolism. At the highest subtoxic concentration of O2 used (330 mmHg in the input gas), lactate was oxidized mainly to acetate and CO2 and the rate of propionate formation was very low. The high molar growth yield obtained under these conditions suggested that lactate and NADH oxidation via the cytochrome electron transport system was coupled to ATP synthesis.