Inhibitory Effect of Glucose on Enzyme Formation

Abstract

THE induced biosynthesis of many microbial enzymes is susceptible to the inhibitory effect of glucose¹. The physiological significance of this phenomenon has been indicated by the study of an L-histidine-requiring mutant strain of Aerobacter aerogenes in which glucose inhibits the formation of histidase, thereby conserving the L-histidine for its specific role as growth factor². Under conditions that permit a gratuitous, linear production of myoinositol dehydrogenase (another inducible enzyme in A. aerogenes) in the absence of the inducing agent, the glucose effect is still operative, indicating that glucose interferes with the production of enzyme rather than with .the process of induction³.