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. 1967 Apr;42(4):491–496. doi: 10.1104/pp.42.4.491

Photosynthesis in Rhodospirillum rubrum. II. Photoheterotrophic Carbon Dioxide Fixation 1

Louise Anderson 1,2, R C Fuller 1
PMCID: PMC1086571  PMID: 6042358

Abstract

The contribution of the reductive pentose phosphate cycle to the photometabolism of carbon dioxide and to carbon metabolism in Rhodospirillum rubrum grown photoheterotrophically with l-malate as the carbon source is nil, unlike autotrophically grown R. rubrum. Glycolic acid appears to be the first stable product of CO2 fixation in R. rubrum cultured photoheterotrophically on l-malate. The results obtained in 14CO2 fixation experiments suggest that the photometabolism of CO2 through glycolate into malate is a major pathway of CO2 fixation in such cells. However, l-malate was a much more efficient precursor of phosphate esters, and of glutamic acid, than was carbon dioxide; l-malate is therefore, in this case, a far more important source of cell carbon than is carbon dioxide.

The products of the light-dependent incorporation of CO2 and of acetate were investigated in R. rubrum grown photoheterotrophically on acetate. Carboxylation reactions and the reductive pentose phosphate cycle are apparently of greater significance in the photometabolism of acetate heterotrophs than in malate heterotrophs; the photometabolism of the acetate photoheterotrophs seems to be intermediate between the photoheterotrophy of malate heterotrophs and strict autotrophy.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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