Abstract
THE first observations of violacein formation by bacteria were reported almost a century ago1. Since then, occasional investigations of the production and chemistry of this pigment were made without revealing much information on its nature2. A significant contribution to this problem was made only recently by Ballantine et al., who elucidated the structure of this pigment and confirmed it by chemical synthesis3. Their results showed that the violacein molecule consists of a 5-hydroxyindole, an α-pyrrolidone and an oxindole unit, and suggested that all three units could be derived from tryptophan. Indeed, results of a study, which was also made in recent years by DeMoss and Evans, established that this amino-acid was the only substance required for the biosynthesis of violacein4.
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SEBEK, O., JÄGER, H. Divergent Pathways of Indole Metabolism in Chromobacterium violaceum. Nature 196, 793–795 (1962). https://doi.org/10.1038/196793a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/196793a0
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