Bacterial Metabolism

Contents: 1. Nutrition of bacteria. 2. How Escherichia coli synthesizes ATP during aerobic growth on glucose. 3. Biosynthesis of Escherichia coli cells from glucose. 4. Aerobic growth of Escherichia coli on substrates other than glucose. 5. Metabolic diversity of aerobic heterotrophs. 6. Catabolic activities of aerobic heterotrophs. 7. Regulation of bacterial metabolism. 8. Bacterial fermentations. 9. Chemolithotrophic and phototrophic metabolism. 10. Fixation of molecular Nitrogen. Index. Subject Index.

This concise, yet comprehensive textbook surveys the domain of bacterial metabolism and describes the various facets of this subject in terms useful to students and research workers. Emphasis is on those metabolic reactions which occur only in bacteria or those of particular importance for bacteria. Thus, the book describes in detail the energy metabolism of various groups of bacteria including aerobic and anaerobic heterotrophs, as well as chemolithotrophs, and phototrophs. In addition the book examines various pathways used by bacteria for the degradation of certain organic compounds, the fixation of molecular nitrogen, the biosynthesis of cellular constituents, and the regulation of bacterial metabolism.

This book describes microbial systematics and microbial chemistry and focuses on catabolic events. It deals with the progress made in bacterial metabolism that includes data on regulatory mechanisms, comparison of bacterial growth kinetics with enzyme kinetics, aerobic amino acid catabolism, and the glucose transport mechanism. This text also emphasizes the development of photosynthetic phosphorylation in the different bacterial families. This book explains anaerobic respiration and carbohydrate metabolism glucose, fructose, lactose, mannose, allose, and sorbitol. This text then describes aerobic respiration including the “Nitroso” and “Nitro” groups of genera, and the Knaligas bacteria, which use the reaction between molecular hydrogen and molecular oxygen as their source of energy.

This book also explains the microbial transformation of iron as caused by either specific organisms (e.g. Ferrobacillus ferrooxidans) or nonspecific organisms. This selection also explains the process of fermentation by enterobacteriaceae, lactic acid bacteria, and proteolytic clostridia. This text can be valuable for microchemists, microbiologists, students, and academicians whose disciplines are in biological chemistry and cellular biology.