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Appl Environ Microbiol. 1973 June; 25(6): 873-879
Copyright © 1973 American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Production of a Sporulation Pigment by Streptomyces venezuelae

^a Department of Microbiology, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia 23298

ABSTRACT

Streptomyces venezuelae S13 produced a pH-indicating sporulation pigment on a glucose-salts-agar medium consisting of glucose, KNO₃, MgSO₄, and Na₂HPO₄, pH 7. Pigmentation on this medium appeared to be closely associated with sporulation, which normally required 5 to 7 days at 30 C. The pigment was soluble in water as well as in a number of organic solvents. Butanol-extracted pigment exhibited absorption maxima at 430 and 520 nm at pH 3 and 12, respectively. Although many salts of organic acids and amino acids could replace glucose as the sole carbon source in basal salts-agar medium for growth and pigmentation, most sugars that were tested supported good growth but negligible pigmentation. Among the nitrogenous substances tested, KNO₃ was most desirable for pigmentation. The organism did not exhibit any specific requirements for divalent cations with respect to growth and pigmentation. In the absence of MgSO₄, however, glucose-salts-agar prepared by autoclaving all components together failed to support growth. The production of the sporulation pigment on glucose-salts-agar was comparable to that obtained on tomato paste-oatmeal-agar medium. Incorporation of partially purified pigment material into broth medium that did not normally support sporulation induced sporulation, and amino acid-salts-agar medium could induce vegetative mycelia to pigment when transferred from medium that did not support either pigmentation or sporulation.

¹ Present address: Department of Biology, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri 63130.