Il passaggio di una coltura batterica dalla crescita aerobica a quella anaerobica

Abstract

In a previous paper, the transition from the «in series» to the «in parallel» configuration of the respiratory chain, followed by the inverse transition, was proposed as a response of the bacterial cell, when the oxygen tension in the medium becomes insufficient for a normal aerobic growth of the culture. It is now shown that the hypothesis of the iteration of that process can explain all the successive sudden falls of the growth rate of the optical density, in a bacterial culture, growing exponentially at constant total oxygen flux. All the experimental results are in accordance with the previsions of the theory. However, when the growth of the culture is nearly anaerobic, their accuracy is low. © 1990 Accademia nazionale dei Lincei.