Page 188 - The Biochemistry of Inorganic Polyphosphates

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Peculiarities of polyphosphate metabolism
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Table 8.7 The contents of PolyPs and P i in Acetabularia crenulata at different stages of
development (Kulaev et al., 1975). The stages of growth were as follows: (1) young cells,
1.5–2 cm long; (2) cells 2.5–3 cm long, up to 2 mm in diameter; (3) cells with umbellulles
filled with secondary nuclei; (4) cells with mature umbellulles filled with cysts.
−1
Phosphate content (µg P (cell ))
Stages of growth
Fraction 1 2 3 4

P i 0.52 1.40 0.76 1.88
PolyP(I) (acid-soluble) 0.67 3.30 10.10 2.41
PolyP(II) (salt-soluble) 0.12 0.46 0.44 1.27
PolyP(III) (alkali soluble) 0.0 0.0 0.25 0.54
PolyP(V) (hot perchloric acid extract) 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.81
Total PolyP 0.79 3.76 10.79 5.03

Algae were shown to have a correlation between PolyP and nucleic acid biosynthesis
during growth, similar to that revealed in fungi. Close links between the PolyP and RNA con-
tents during onthogenetic development were demonstrated in Euglena (Smillie and Krotkov,
1960) and Chlorella pyrenoidosa (Hermann and Schmidt, 1965). During the growth and
development of synchronous cultures of Chlorella pyrenoidosa, the accumulation of PolyP,
RNA and DNA took place in parallel, although PolyP biosynthesis during the first few hours
of growth outpaced to some extent the synthesis of nucleic acids (Hermann and Schmidt,
1965). The work of Miyachi and co-workers (Miyachi, 1961; Miyachi and Miyachi, 1961;
Miyachi and Tamiya, 1961; Miyachi et al., 1964) showed that only some of the PolyP frac-
tions with specific cellular localization were involved in RNA and DNA synthesis. These
investigations, together with those of Okuntsov and Grebennikov (1977), showed that the
metabolism of the various PolyP fractions in Chlorella proceeded differently in the dark
and in the light, as well as in the presence and absence of P i in the medium.

8.12.3 The Influence of Light and Darkness

The fact that algae are authotrophs has a profound effect on their PolyP metabolism. The
early work of Wintermans (1954, 1955) and subsequently of other researchers (Stich, 1953,
1955, 1956; Nihei, 1955, 1957; Vagabov and Serenkov, 1963; Baslavskaya and Bystrova,
1964; Kulaev and Vagabov, 1967; Kanai and Simonis, 1968; Lysek and Simonis, 1968;
Sundberg and Nilshammer-Holmvall, 1975; Ullrich and Simonis, 1969) showed that the
formation of PolyP and PolyP-containing granules in algae proceeded much more rapidly
in the light than in the dark. It was shown that PolyP synthesis in Ankistodesmus braunii
(Ullrich and Simonis, 1969) was strongly stimulated as the oxygen concentration in the
medium increased. These observations lead to the conclusion that there is a close connection
between the formation of PolyP in algae and photosynthesis. However, it is not possible