Isolation and Characterization of Diaminopimelic Acid from Culture Filtrate of an Escherichia coli Mutant

Abstract

Summary A convenient procedure by which diaminopimelic acid may be readily isolated from the culture filtrate of an Escherichia coli mutant is described. The purified diaminopimelic acid resembles that isolated by Work(1) from bacterial hydrolysates with respect to water solubility and absence of significant optical activity. The diaminopimelic acid isolated may be presumed to be the internally compensated meso isomer. The possibility that a more water soluble L(+)-diaminopimelic acid may exist in once-crystallized preparations that show only one nin-hydrin reactive component was not excluded.