Bacterial Membranes and the Respiratory Chain

The most valuable service Dr. Gel'man and her colleagues have performed for the many investigators of bacterial membrane systems in producing their first excellent monograph on "The Respiratory Apparatus of Bacteria" in 1966 has been continued and expanded in the preparation of this volume. The au­ thors have brought together in a single volume much of the detail of investiga­ tions of bacterial membranes at the ultrastructura11eve1 and the chemical and biochemical organizationa11eve1s. The approach in bringing together this rap­ idly increasing volume of discovery has been both comprehensive and system­ atic, with a constant awareness of the importance of the molecular and func­ tional properties and relationships existing in various bacterial membranes. The monograph naturally reflects the authors' interest and their own inti­ mate involvement in the elucidation at the molecular level of the respiratory chains organized in the prokaryotic bacterial membrane system. It is entirely appropriate that the chapter devoted to this topic should occupy a substantial proportion of this monograph. Indeed, had this volume been prepared at this very moment, that proportion would have been even greater, as the work in .

Contenu

I. The Membrane Structures of Bacteria.- Morphology of the bacterial membrane system.- Methods used to isolate membranes.- Separation of the cytoplasmic membrane and mesosomes.- Electron microscopy of the membranes.- The biogenesis of membranes.- II. The Chemical Composition of Bacterial Membranes.- Lipids.- Proteins. Structural protein.- Other components of membranes.- III. The molecular Organization of Bacterial membranes.- Problem and methods.- Characteristics of the state of individual components of the membrane.- General remarks.- Optical activity and conformation of protein.- Infrared spectroscopy.- Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR).- Effect of temperature on the state of membranes. Differential thermal analysis.- State of the water.- Paramagnetic and fluorescence labeling.- Relative arrangement of the components of the membrane.- Electron microscopy and x-ray diffraction.- Action of enzymes on membranes, acylation and immunological reactions.- Character of the linkage between components of the membrane.- General remarks.- Action of organic solvents, ionic strength, and H+ and OH? ions on membranes.- Detergents as tools for the investigation of membranes.- Complexes.- Bacteriocins and bacterial membranes.- How can the bacterial membrane be represented?.- IV. Bacterial Membranes as Polyfunctional Systems.- Electron transport.- Transport of materials.- Cell division and spore formation.- The membrane and biosynthesis.- V. The Respiratory Chain and Its Organization in the Bacterial Membrane.- The general scheme of the respiratory chain.- Dehydrogenases.- Ubiquinones and menaquinones.- Cytochromes.- Definition. The cytochrome complements of bacteria.- The number of cytochromes in membranes.- Localization of cytochromes. Their binding with the membrane and isolation.- Properties of purified cytochromes.- Dehydrogenase-cytochrome complexes.- Cytochrome-concentration membrane fragments.- Evaluation of the action of detergents on cytochromes.- Additional components of the respiratory chain.- The composition of bacterial respiratory chains.- Variation of respiratory chains.- Schemes of respiratory chains.- Role of membrane structures in the action of the respiratory chain.- Oxidative phosphorylation.- General remarks.- Localization of oxidative phosphorylation.- Factors of oxidative phosphorylation.- Some special features distinguishing bacterial oxidative phosphorylation.- Conclusion.