Isolation and Study of an Apparently Widespread Cellulose-Fermenting Anaerobe, Cl. cellulosolvens (N. Sp.?)

Abstract

The authors isolated from horse feces a cellulose-fermenting anaerobe, Clostridium cellulosolvens* (p. 182), morphologically similar to the organisms described by Omeliansky. The rods are thin, often slightly curved, and form spherical terminal spores. Colony formation can be secured on a peptone beef infusion agar medium containing dextrin and cysteine; it is not selective and can not be used for direct isolation, but is of value in obtaining the desired organism from enriched cultures. The best liquid medium devised for cellulose decomposition by this organism consists of a peptone beef infusion phosphate broth containing a strip of filter paper. Cellulose, dextrin, arabinose and xylose alone of the materials tried are attacked. Glucose is not utilized, a fact in contradiction of the so-called theory of carbohydrate gradients. Presence of dextrin or glucose seems to have little or no effect on amount of cellulose decomposed. As far as they have been determined, the products of cellulose decomposition by this organism are CO2, H, and organic acids.