The regulation of transport of glucose, gluconate and 2-oxogluconate and of glucose catabolism in Pseudomonas aeruginosa

1. The induction by glucose and gluconate of the transport systems and catabolic enzymes for glucose, gluconate and 2-oxogluconate was studied with Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1 growing in a chemostat under conditions of nitrogen limitation with citrate as the major carbon source. 2. In the presence of a residual concentration of 30mM-citrate an inflowing glucose concentration of 6-8 mM was required to induce the glucose-transport system and associated catabolic enzymes. When the glucose concentration was raised to 20mM the glucose-transport system was repressed, but the transport system for gluconate, and at higher glucose concentrations, that for 2-oxogluconate, were induced. No repression of the glucose-catabolizing enzymes occurred at the higher inflowing glucose concentrations. 3. In the presence of 30mM-citrate no marked threshold concentration was required for the induction of the gluconate-transport system by added gluconate. 4. In the presence of 30mM-citrate and various concentrations of added glucose and gluconate, the activity of the glucose-transport system accorded with the proposal that a major factor concerned in the repression of this system was the concentration of gluconate, produced extracellularly by glucose dehydrogenase. 5. This proposal was supported by chemostat experiments with mutants defective in glucose dehydrogenase. Such mutants showed no repression of the glucose-transport system by high inflowing concentrations, but with a mutant apparently defective only in glucose dehydrogenase, the addition of gluconate caused repression of the glucose-transport system. 6. Studies with the mutants showed that both glucose and gluconate can induce the enzymes of the Entner-Doudoroff system, whereas for the induction of the gluconate-transport system glucose must be converted into gluconate.