SOME ENZYMATIC ACTIVITIES OF A PARTICULATE FRACTION FROM SONIC LYSATES OF <i>ESCHERICHIA COLI</i>

Abstract

Crude lysates of animal, plant, and bacterial cells almost invariably can be shown to contain a particulate fraction from which certain oxidative enzymes can be separated and solubilized only with the greatest difficulty. The particles in this fraction should not be confused with the much more complex and highly organized mitochondria that have been isolated from animal and plant cells. They contain a much smaller, less varied, and more stable aggregate of enzymatic activities than do mitochondria. Indeed it seems very probable that such particles, at least where obtained from plant and mammalian cells, consist largely of varying-sized fragments of an insoluble component of disrupted mitochondria. In the course of our investigation of the mode of antibacterial action of furacin (5-nitro-2furaldehyde semicarbazone) we have had the opportunity to make a fairly extensive survey of such a particulate fraction from cells of Escherichia coli strain ECFS.