Chromatographic Examination. of the Products of Digestion of Pectic Materials by Culture Solutions

SUMMARY: Solutions containing pectic materials were digested by solutions from cultures of 25 bacteria and examined chromatographically for breakdown products. Galacturonic acid and oligo-uronides were found with soft-rot Eminia spp., Xan-thomonas campestris, Pseudomonas marginalis, Bacillus polymyma and Klebsiella aerogenes (galacturonic acid only). In an accompanying paper (Smith, 1958) the results of screening a number of cultures of bacteria for production of pectic enzymes have been described. To obtain further information on the nature of the enzymes concerned the pro-ducts of digestion of pectic materials by some of the bacteria were examined by paper partition chromatography. METHODS Cultures were grown in SM1 medium (Smith, 1958) and sampled a t various times. The supernatant fluid after centrifuging was added to substrates of pectin or pectic acid a t pH 7.5 or 5.5 as for viscosity tests-in some cases the pro-portion of culture was increased from 74 to 10 %-and incubated for period