The Influence of Sodium Acetate upon the Dissociation of a Strain of Hemolytic Streptococcus

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Abstract
Variations in environment markedly influence bacterial dissociation. A medium of known chemical constitution is essential in studies designed to determine the role of individual nutrilites upon bacterial dissociation. Elimination of Na acetate from a "synthetic" medium determines the transformation of a Lancefield group C hemolytic streptococcus from the mucoid to the smooth growth phase. As long as the mucoid phase grew without acetate its absence affected neither the growth rate of the organism nor the final pH of the culture medium. The mechanism of action of Na acetate functions not as a growth factor but as a precursor in biosynthesis of some higher molecular wt. compound(s) essential as a structural component of the capsular material for maintenance of the mucoid state. The conditioning influence of acetate on mucoid state emphasizes the likelihood that mucoid nature and virulence do not represent linked characters, but an association of characters. M to S transformation is not a spontaneous mutation but an adaptive response to the absence of a nutrilite so vital to the mucoid phase that this phase may be said to have no existence in its absence.

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