Page 69 - The Biochemistry of Inorganic Polyphosphates

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LOCALIZATION OF

POLYPHOSPHATES IN

CELLS OF PROKARYOTES

AND EUKARYOTES

5.1 Prokaryotes

Prokaryotic cells have much simpler structures when compared with the simplest eukary-
otes, such as yeast, fungi or algae. They have no nucleus enveloped by a membrane and no
vacuoles, which are known to possess many PolyPs in eukaryotic cells. The compartmen-
talization of biochemical processes is not well developed in prokaryotic cells. However,
PolyPs are found in all main compartments of the bacterial cell, i.e. cytoplasm, cell surface,
periplasm and plasma membrane.
The presence of PolyPs in cellular inclusions, long known as Babesh–Ernst bodies,
metachromatic granules,or volutin granules, was found long ago (Belozersky, 1945; Ebel,
1952d; Ebel and Muller, 1958; Ebel el al., 1955, 1958a,b; Meissner and Diller, 1953;
Drews, 1958a,b, 1959a,b, 1960a,b, 1962; Drews and Niklowitz, 1957; Guberniev et al.,
1961; Widra, 1959; Wilkinson and Duguid, 1960; Prokof’eva-Bel’govskaya and Kats, 1960;
Hughes and Muhammed, 1962; Kulaev and Belozersky, 1962a,b; Verbina, 1964). PolyP
granules were observed in cells of many prokaryotes (see the reviews of Kuhl, 1960, 1962,
1976; Harold, 1966; Kulaev and Vagabov, 1983; Wood and Clark, 1988), including PolyP-
accumulating bacteria from activated sludge (Suresh et al., 1985; Rees et al., 1992; Serafim
et al., 2002).
The presence of PolyPs in these granules is indicated by the following indirect observa-

tions. First, volutin granules undergo metachromatic staining by basic dyes, 4 ,6 -diamino-
2-phenylindole (DAPI) fluorescence shifts, and other reactions specific for PolyPs (see

The Biochemistry of Inorganic Polyphosphates I. S. Kulaev, V. M. Vagabov and T. V. Kulakovskaya
C 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd ISBN: 0-470-85810-9

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