The influences of temperature on growth and death of osmophilic yeasts in environments of both ordinary and high concentrations of sodium chloride were investigated. It was found that many osmophilic yeasts are able to grow in saline medium at a high temperature such as 40°, whereas in NaCl-free medium po growth occurred at the same temperature. Effects of various factors on this phenomena were examined. This halophilic property of yeast cells at a high temperature seemed to be due to the active metabolism of the cells in such an environment but not to the increase of heatstability of cell proteins or enzymes that might be caused by the dehydration by effect of sodium chloride.

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Saccharomyces rouxii which is a typical salt-tolerant yeast and plays an important role in soybrewing, was found to ferment glucose giving high yields of glycerol in a high saline meduim under aerobic conditions, though only a small amount of glycerol was produced in the ordinary medium. An amount as much as 40_??_50% of glucose fermented was converted to glycerol under the above conditions.

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1. The oxidized egg-white lysozyme was hydrolyzed with crystalline Asp. Saitoi pro-teinase and the resulting N-terminal residues were detected by the DNP-technique of Sanger.
2. It was proved that Asp. Saitoi proteinase has a considerably wider range of specificity than pepsin and Bac. subtilis proteinase.

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(1) The occurrence of acylase activity in plants such as vegetables, pulses, cereals, pota-toes, fruits and mushroom, has been confirmed for the first time.
(2) Of the acyl and glycyl amino acids tested, acetylmethionine and glycylmethionine were most readily hydrolyzed by most of the plant preparations tested, and susceptibility was lowered in the order of chloroacetylphenyl-alanine, acetylglutamic acid and ε-benzoyl-α-acetyllysine. The last mentioned compound was insusceptible to the plant acylase except in the case of mushroom.
(3) In the germination state of cereals and pulses, higher activities, although not so appa-rent, were often observed.
(4) Mushroom showed higher and some-what different hydrolytic activities than the other higher plants tested.

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On reduction of (-)-menthone by various methods, generally, a mixture of (-)-menthol and (+)-neomenthol has been obtained. In the present work, it is found that (-)-menthol can be prepared almost quantitatively from (-)-menthone by treatment with sodium in aqueous-ammonia.

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The synthesis of (+)-isomenthol has been studied by several groups of workers, but their experiments proved to be far from satisfactory. In this investigation, it is now shown that (+)-isomenthol is obtained in a better yield from inverted menthone, a mixture of (-)-menthone and (+)-isomenthone, by a new reduction method using sodium in aqueous-ammonia.

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The extent to which phosphatases interfere with, the determination of phosphorylase activity in crude extracts from plant materials by hydrolyzing glucose-l-phosphate was determined. Sodium fluoride was an effective, although not satisfactory, inhibitor of phosphatase. Evidence was presented to show that in crude extract of broad bean seeds glucose-l-phosphate was hydrolyzed most probably via glucose-6-phosphate.

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Critical examinations were made on the conditions for preparing the sugar solutions to be analyzed by ion-exchange chromatography of sugar-borate complexes by the method of Khym and Zill¹⁾. A procedure was proposed which gave the best recovery of sugars with minimum hydrolysis of sucrose. By means of this procedure, sugar solutions were prepared from potato tubers which had been stored at a high (30°C) or low temperature (6°C). Results of the chromatographic separation and determina-tion of component sugars showed that main sugars present in potato tubers were sucrose, glucose, and fructose. Maltose and pentoses could not be detected. The contents of sucrose, glucose, and especially, fructose were far greater in potatoes stored at a low temperature than in those stored at a high temperature.

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The properties of UDPG→fructose transglucosylase, partially purified from immature soybeans or broad beans, were investigated. Magnesium ions had a stimulating effect on this enzyme. Evidence was presented to show that UDPG, the glucosyl group donor for sucrose synthesis, was regenerated from UDP and G-I-P in the presence of ATP.

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The outline of this report¹⁾ has already been published in this Journal appearing under “Communication to the Editors”. A new gibberellin which was named gibberellin A₄ was isolated and characterized.

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The outline of this report has already been published in this Journal appearing as “Communication to the Editors”. The molecular formula of gibberellin A₂ has been corrected to C₁₉H₂₆0₆. To elucidate the relation between the four gibberellins, we studied their functional groups, skeleton and double bond. As for the results, it was certified that gibberellin A₁, A₂, A₃ (gibberellic acid) and A₄ have functional groups and skeleton as shown in Table I.

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The outline of this report has already been published in this journal as a short communication¹⁾ to the Editors. The presence of the -_??_(OH)-_??_=CH₂ group and a five-membered ring in gibber-ellin A₁ was elucidated by ozonolysis. The points of attachment of this five-membered ring and the position of the tertiary hydroxyl group were also elucidated by dehydrogenation of the ozonolysis product.

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The authors have succeeded in isolating an antibiotic, from the cultured filtrate of Asp. oryzae, responsible for, at least, the majority of the active substances against hiochi-bacteria, as pale yellow crystals of m.p. 152_??_153°C. It has been proved that this antibiotic is identical with hydroxyasper-gillic acid. The minimum concentration for complete inhibition in diluted Saké-peptone medium against true hiochi-bacilli, Lactobacillus homohiochii H-42 and Lactobacillus heterohiochii H-1, was 10 γ/ml, and that against hiochi-lactobacilli H-7 and H-34 20γ/ml.

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Islanditoxin is a novel peptide consisted of five amino acids, three of which have been known as normal components of proteins and the remaining two, D-β-phenyl-β-aminopropionic acid and L-dichloroproline have not been encountered previously in nature. The structure of islanditoxin is shown to be a cyclic polypeptide, represented by formula (VIII).

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Pediococcus soyae nov. sp., which has an inherited salt tolerant nature, is grown in solutions of high osmotic pressure. When this strain is transferred from 0.5% salted medium to a new medium containing 18%, sodium chloride, the viable counts of this organism firstly decrease from about one half to one-third of the inoculated cells, and then normal growth occurs. This indicates the occurrence of physiological adaptation at an early stage of growth.
The growth of this lactic acid bacterium is observed in concentrated solutions of various inorganic salts. The solutions containing Na⁺, K⁺, Cl^-, NO₃^- and SO₄^-- ions are not toxic for the organism, and the organism can grow in solutions of 133 atm. osmotic pressure, generally. However, Li⁺, Ca⁺⁺ Mg⁺⁺ and Br⁺ are, toxic for growth.
In concentrated sugar solutions, this organism also propagates well, and growth is observed in the media containing 50%, glucose or 60% sucrose, osmotic pressure being 105 and 84 atm., respectively. Therefore, Pediococcus soyac nov. sp. is osmotolerant.

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The P-factor a new growth factor for Ped. soyae, is found in partial acid and enzymic hydro-lysates of Hammersten's milk casein, and is therefore, supposed to be a kind of peptide. The well-known peptidic growth promoting substance for Lact. casei, strepogenin and its relating substances, are quite ineffective to the author's organism. P-factor exists along with the S-factor which is ano-ther growth promoting-factor for this lactic acid bacterium, in soy mash juice and in the water extract of Aspergillus sojae mycelium. The former substance is also found in various kinds of com-mercial peptones. The factor was not substitutable with all of the 19 synthetic peptides tested. S-factor is effective, only in the presence of the P-factor.

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