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1982
Journal Article
Titel
Utilization of traces of carbon monoxide by aerobic oligotrophic microorganisms in ocean, lake and soil
Abstract
Carbon monoxide at trace concentrations (equal or smaller than 1 nM) was utilized in ocean water, lake water and soil. By boiling or by poisoning the water with HgCl2, NaCN or NaN3 must read CO consumption was switched off; this demonstrated that CO utilization was due to metabolic processes. Since CO consumption activity was removed by filtration through 0.2 mym filters, but not by filtration through 3.0 mym filters, CO consumption was most probably due to single bacterial cells. CO consumption followed Michaelis-Menten kinetics with K sub m-values of 7-9 nM CO. Enrichment experiments were carried out by gassing lake water and soil suspensions with ambient pressurized air containing 0.5-1.0 ppmv CO. After a total supply of approximately 2 ml CO, utilization of CO became detectable. Then, the CO consumption rates of the suspensions increased steadily with incubation time indicating the growth of a specific CO-utilizing microbial population. No CO consumption activity was detectable in control suspensions, which were gassed with CO-free air. The high affinity of soil and water for CO as well as the increase of CO consumption activity upon incubation under ambient atmospheric CO is indicative for the oligotrophic nature of a specific CO-utilizing microflora. (IFU)
Language
English