STUDIES ON PIGMENTATION OF SERRATIA MARCESCENS I

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Abstract
The red pigment, prodigiosin, of a strain of S. marcescens was extracted from 5 day old cultures of the organism by a mild procedure using acetone and petroleum ether. Extracted pigment was chromatographed on paper by means of a circular method. This procedure demonstrated that the pigment had at least 4 components: one blue, 2 red, and one orange, each possessing different Rf values. The spectral properties of the entire, unfractionated pigment were similar to those of pigment extracted by previous investigators. The latter workers regarded the pigment as a single substance. Spectral properties of the individual pigment fractions eluted from the paper chromatograms established that the components, although similar in spectral properties to the whole pigment, did show differences.