From Enzyme Adaptation to Gene Regulation

• Published in: Advances in Applied Microbiology Vol. 52; pp. 159 - 166
• Main Author: Summers, William C
• Format: Book Chapter Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Elsevier Science & Technology 2003; Academic Press
• Subjects: Biological and medical sciences; Biotechnology; Enzymes - history; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Genetics (non-medical); Genetics, Microbial - history; History, 20th Century; Microbiology (non-medical); Microbiology - history; Molecular biology; Regulation(control); Gene; Enzyme; Adaptation
• ISBN: 0120026546; 9780120026548
• ISSN: 0065-2164
• DOI: 10.1016/S0065-2164(03)01006-2

This chapter reviews some of the main pathways that led from bacterial nutrition to physiological genetics. The growth requirements of culture are a convenient way to study the nutritional habits of individual cells. This research on bacterial nutrition is more fruitful because it generated questions, further research, and new explanations about the physiology of bacterial cells. One such phenomenon that grew out of the study of bacterial nutrition is called “enzyme adaptation.” This concept linked studies on bacterial nutrition to the eventual detailed understanding of the mechanism of environmental regulation of bacterial-gene expression. The chapter discusses this conceptual evolution. The role of vitamins, originally discovered as essential for mammals, in the nutrition of microbes is discussed in the chapter. Lwoff analyzed the importance of nutrients in microbial-cellular metabolism, an analysis that led to better understanding of the relationships between vitamins and coenzymes. Comparative studies on different microbes also suggested evolutionary relationships that could explain the wide diversity in both growth requirements and metabolic capacities of microbes.