Abstract
Hydrogenomonas eutropha cells harvested from semicontinuous autotrophic culture and washed free of substrate contain about 13% of nitrogen on a dry-solids basis. Biological value and digestibility of the bacterial nitrogen were determined in the rat by use of an abbreviated Mitchell-Thomas nitrogen balance technique and casein as the standard protein. Casein nitrogen was 99% digestible, and that of both whole boiled and sonically ruptured bacterial cells was 93%. Biological value of casein and the bacterial preparations was uniformly 77%. Amino acid composition of the bacteria, as in the case of casein, indicates a first limitation of sulfur-containing amino acids. These compositional features suggest that H. eutropha may be potentially valuable as a protein supplement in animal feeds.
Full text
PDF


Selected References
These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.
- ROBERTS R. S. The nutritional properties of killed Bacterium coli. Br J Nutr. 1954;8(4):353–363. doi: 10.1079/bjn19540053. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Tannenbaum S. R., Miller S. A. Effect of cell fragmentation on nutritive value of Bacillus megaterium protein. Nature. 1967 Jun 17;214(5094):1261–1262. doi: 10.1038/2141261a0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]