Abstract
Excess phosphate accumulation in microorganisms has been identified with a variety of biological polymers. Prominent among these are polyphosphates (Pn) which have been associated with capsid in Neisseria gonorrhoea (Noegel and Gotschlich, 1983), outside the plasma membrane (Tijssen and von Steveninck, 1984; Umanov et a1, 1975) or as long chain cytoplasmic reserves in a variety of microorganisms (Harold, 1966). Recognized over 150 years ago as one of the earliest biopolymers, interest in this molecule was renewed when Lipman (1941) pointed out that Pn could serve as sources for high energy phosphate. Subsequent studies by Harold (1966), Mühradt (1971) and Kulaev (1975) identified a wide variety of biosynthetic reactions involving Pn. Further the recognition that selected populations of microorganisms can remove excess phosphate has led to interest in this identification and the mechanism(s) of phosphate uptake and release (Harold, 1966). As will be addressed in this workshop, the lack of sufficiently sensitive analytical methods to determine the size and concentration of Pn, as well as the absence of appropriate mutants, have limited our understanding of the role of Pn in microorganisms.
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Halvorson, H.O. (1990). Some Possible Roles of Polyphosphate in Microorganisms. In: Dawes, E.A. (eds) Novel Biodegradable Microbial Polymers. NATO ASI Series, vol 186. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2129-0_17
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2129-0_17
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