Nitrogen Compounds Having Activity of Transforming Blepharisma into Its Spherocell

Abstract

In the earlier stage of experiments it was found out that Blepharisma japonicum Suzuki were transformed to spheroidal cell when ammonia was added to culture medium (Here, spheroidal cell formed from blepharisma by ammonia being designated as spherocell). As a method of studying mechanism of formation of spherocell from blepharisma, many nitrogen compounds were tested to see whether they have activity, like ammonia, to form spherocelL.
The result was that no specific structure of nitrogen compounds was required for having activity to make spherocells for many nitrogen compounds had activity of spherocell formation.
Nitrogen compounds with higher pKa values showed stronger activity, and compounds with lower pKa values showed no activity, for the formation of spherocells.
It was deduced, from the forgoing experiments, that only lone pair electrons on nitrogen compounds took part in the formation of spherocells.