OBSERVATIONS ON A STRAIN OF NEISSERIA MENINGITIDIS IN THE PRESENCE OF GLUCOSE AND MALTOSE II. STUDIES WITH WASHED CELLS'

The hypothesis that a strain of Neisseria meningitidis utilizes the disaccharide, maltose, by a different "metabolic pathway " than that involved in the utiliza-tion of its constituent monosaccharide, glucose, was proposed as a result of studies of the growth of the organism (Fltting and Scherp, 1951). Further support for this assumption is presented here with the result of studies of suspensions of washed cells of this meningococcus in the presence of either maltose, glucose, glucose-i-phosphate, or a polysaccharide from a type 1 meningococcus. These systems were explored with respect to rates of oxygen consumption in carbon dioxide-free air and in air buffered with three per cent carbon dioxide, aerobic and anaerobic acid production, and uptake of inorganic phosphate. With maltose as the substrate, the organism consumed oxygen faster than it did with glucose. Similar observations have been made with a variety of bacteria and have been reported in the literature previously (Hassid and Doudoroff, 1950; Leibowitz and Hestrin, 1945; and Doudoroff, 1940). Oxygen consumption by suspensions of washed cells of this strain of N. meningitidis was found, how