Abstract
A bacterium isolated in our laboratory, Arthrobacter poraffineus KY 4303, when grown on an n-alkane as the sole source of carbon, accumulated anthrone-positive substances in the culture medium. These were isolated in crystalline forms and identified respectively as α, α-trehalose and D-glucose.
The addition of penicillin to the growing culture led to a remarkable increase in the accumulation of trehalose. It attained to approximately 5 to 6g per liter, corresponding to 60_??_70% of total sugars accumulated in the culture medium.
Extracellular accumulation of these sugars was also observed in other bacteria which can utilize n-alkanes as the sole source of carbon.
