Abstract
The distribution of nucleoside phosphotransferase activities in bacteria was studied in the acidic reaction mixture containing HxR and a phosphate compound such as p-NPP, and the activities were found to be distributed in various kinds of bacteria, most of which are grouped in Gram-negative bacteria.
The bacteria which can synthesize nucleotides by their nucleoside phosphotransferases were divided into two groups, depending on the kind of synthesized nucleotide isomers and the donor specificity.
The bacteria which were characterized to catalyze mainly the phosphorylation at 5'-position of nucleoside were found in such genera as Pseudomonas, Alcaligenes, Achromobacter, Flavobacterium, Serratia and Staphylococcus, while the bacterial strains assigned to such genera as Aeromonas, Escherichia, Aerobacter, Proteus and Salmonella were characterized to predominantly catalyze the phosphorylation at 3'(& 2')-position.
When the nucleotides were used as phosphate donors, their phosphate group was specifically transferred to the same position of the nucleotide which were produced by the bacteria, either in the intact cell system or in the cell-free systems.
These specificities of nucleoside phosphotransferase were considered to be correlated with the classification of these bacteria.
