THE MORPHOLOGY OF A SPECIES OF THE BACTERIAL GENUS CYTOPHAGA WINOG. IN CULTURE

Abstract

A culture of the cellulolytic bacterial organism, Sporocytophaga myxococcoides (A.T.C.C. No. 10010), has been studied. In or on media containing cellulose, the primary effective cells are long and acuminate; in old cultures a large proportion of them become spherical or spheroid and are bound together in mucilage, in which new spheroid cells develop. In or on media containing cellobiose, glucose, or mannose as the source of carbon, the primary effective cells resemble those on cellulose media, but the resting cell is a spherical granule, its diameter not more than twice the width of the acuminate cell; the spheroid cells do not become aggregated in the mucilage, and do not physically resemble the so-called microcysts except in shape.