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Showing papers by "Indiana University published in 1975"


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Thirty-three strains of Rhodopseudomonas capsulata have been studied in order to develop a more comprehensive characterization of the species, and the characteristics of an “ideal biotype” have been defined, which can be used to distinguish Rps.
Abstract: Thirty-three strains of Rhodopseudomonas capsulata have been studied in order to develop a more comprehensive characterization of the species. On the basis of morphological, nutritional, physiological and other properties, the characteristics of an "ideal biotype" have been defined, which can be used to distinguish Rps. capsulata from similar purple bacteria. In this connection, two properties of Rps. capsulata are of particular note: a) sensitivity to penicillin G is 10(3)-10(5) times greater than that shown by closely related species, and b) all strains examined are susceptible to lysis by one or more strains of host species-specific virulent bacteriophages. It appears that members of the species Rps. capsulata form a stringent taxonomic grouping.

708 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the relationship between social skills, social interaction, and popularity was examined and the importance of assessing social skills which are first validated by reference to a criterion such as sociometric position was noted.
Abstract: The relationship between social skills, social interaction, and popularity was examined. The subjects were 198 children in third and fourth grades in middle- and low-income schools. The relationships between number of friends, socioeconomic status, and grade level were studied in a 2 times 2 times 2 factorial design with 2 sets of dependent measures: (1) social skills were assessed by an experimenter testing each child individually on a set of tasks which included measures of the ability to label emotions in facial expressions, knowledge of how to make friends, giving help, and role-taking ability; and (2) social interaction in the classroom was assessed using a naturalistic observational system. Popular and unpopular children differed in their knowledge of how to make friends and on the referential-communication task. In the classroom, popular children distributed and received more positive reinforcement than unpopular children and spent less time daydreaming. Both grade and social class factors were significant. However, different patterns of results contributed to the main effect of friends and the grade-level main effect. The importance of assessing social skills which are first validated by reference to a criterion such as sociometric position was noted.

509 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Successful defribillation results when a critical amount of myocardium becomes depolarized by either potassium chloride or electrical discharge; depolarization of every cell in both ventricle is not necessary to terminate ventricular fibrillation in the entire heart.
Abstract: The role of a critical myocardial mass required to maintain ventricular fibrillation initiated by rapid ventricular pacing was studied by two methods in dogs placed on total cardiopulmonary bypass. In the first method, depolarization of a limited myocardial mass was accomplished by injecting potassium chloride into one or two coronary arteries. Injection of potassium chloride simultaneously into the left circumflex and left anterior descending coronary arteries abolished ventricular fibrillation more often than did injection into any other single or combination of two coronary arteries (P less than 0.0001). Ventricular fibrillation could not be reinitiated as long as the left ventricle remained inexcitable. Immersing the heart in a solution of potassium chloride or injecting the solution into the right and left ventricular cavities failed to terminate ventricular fibrillation. The second method evaluated the amount of current necessary to terminate ventricular electrodes, between two left ventricular electrodes and between one right ventricular and one left ventricular electrode. Electrical shocks of equal magnitude terminated ventricular fibrillation most often when those shocks were delivered between an electrode located at the right ventricular apex and an electrode located at the posterior base of the left ventricle, and least often when the shock was delivered between two right ventricular electrodes. Successful defribillation results when a critical amount of myocardium becomes depolarized by either potassium chloride or electrical discharge; depolarization of every cell in both ventricle is not necessary to terminate ventricular fibrillation in the entire heart.

500 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
Abhijit Basu1, S. W. Young1, Lee J. Suttner1, W. C. James1, Greg H. Mack1 
TL;DR: In this article, the relative percentage of undulose, non-undulose and polycrystalline quartz, and the number of crystal units per polycraystalline grain, on a single diamond diagram, are used to discriminate sands of plutonic, low-rank and high-rank metamorphic parentage, both for Recent and ancient sands.
Abstract: Undulosity in quartz from low rank metamorphic rocks, as studied with a universal stage, is sufficiently different from that in pluton-derived quartz to be useful in provenance interpretation. Subdivision of monocrystalline quartz of medium sand-size into two populations, one with 5° undulosity, enables efficient and reliable interpretation. Geometrical and empirical analyses of the relation between true angles of undulosity and corresponding apparent values determined on a conventional flat stage indicate that apparent values approach real values closely enough to obviate use of the universal stage for recognition of the two quartz undulosity populations in routine petrographic analysis. The amount of polycrystalline quartz and the number of crystals per grain of polycrystalline quartz in medium-sized Holocene sand also assist in provenance interpretation. Thirteen percent of the total quartz derived from plutonic rocks is polycrystalline. This compares with 29% in sand from middle and upper-rank metamorphic rocks and 53% in sand from low-rank metamorphic rocks. Greater than 75% of the polycrystalline quartz grains from plutonic and high-rank metamorphic sources contain 2-3 crystal units per grain; less than 75% of the quartz grains from low-rank metamorphic rocks contain 2-3 crystal units. Plotting of four variables, relative percentage of (1) undulose, (2) non-undulose and (3) polycrystalline quartz, and (4) number of crystal units per polycrystalline grain, on a single diamond diagram enables one to discriminate sands of plutonic, low-rank and high-rank metamorphic parentage, both for Recent and ancient sands.

375 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
24 Jul 1975-Nature
TL;DR: Investigation on purine metabolism showed that in the hepatomas there was an increased capacity in the de novo pathway of biosynthesis of inosine 5′-monophosphate (IMP), as reflected in the increased activity of glutamine PRPP amidotransferase and a decrease in IMP catabolism.
Abstract: PREVIOUS studies conducted in this laboratory demonstrated that in a spectrum of liver tumours with different growth rates there is an imbalance in the activities of key enzymes and competing pathways of carbohydrate, pyrimidine, DNA and ornithine metabolism1–4. Recent investigations on purine metabolism showed that in the hepatomas there was an increased capacity in the de novo pathway of biosynthesis of inosine 5′-monophosphate (IMP), as reflected in the increased activity of glutamine PRPP amidotransferase (EC 2.4.2.14) and a decrease in IMP catabolism5,6. These observations directed our attention to the metabolic fate of IMP because this purine nucleotide is at a strategic position in purine metabolism (Fig. 1). Control at such branching points is exerted primarily by modification of the activity or of the rate of synthesis of the first enzymes of the divergent pathways. In this instance, in normal conditions, a balance is maintained by both positive and negative feedback effects. Thus ATP is required for GMP biosynthesis and GTP for AMP biosynthesis; conversely, GMP and AMP each inhibit their own production7. In normal or malignant proliferation, or in response to a hormone stimulus, changes in control frequently involve reprogramming of gene expression. The theoretical framework and predictive value of generalisations about such biochemical changes (termed the molecular correlation concept) have been elaborated1–3.

361 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: For instance, Coleman and Messick as discussed by the authors used the prerequisites approach to explain the first adoption of Social Security in the United States and found that the adoption of social security was correlated with the level of social and economic modernization.
Abstract: Prerequisites Versus Diffusion: Testing Alternative Explanations of Social Security Adoption* DAVID COLLIER Indiana University RICHARD E. MESSICK George Washington University Social security is one of the most important means by which modern nations protect the wel- fare of their citizens. Through programs that deal with the hardships of workers' injury, illness, old age, unemployment, and low income, social se- curity attempts to set a minimum standard of living for the sectors of society covered by the programs. In countries with fully developed pro- grams, social security now protects nearly all members of society. Given the importance of social security, it is hardly surprising that scholars have shown con- siderable interest in analyzing its evolution. Among the many aspects of social security de- velopment, the timing of the first adoption of social security merits particular attention. The circumstances of the first appearance of any policy are inherently interesting, and the first ap- pearance of social security is particularly impor- tant because it has represented in many nations a major break with the antiwelfare doctrine of tra- ditional liberalism. The timing of first adoption has received con- siderable attention in comparative research on social security.' However, this research has gen- * This is a revised version of a paper presented at the 1973 Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago. The research was sup- ported by grants from the Cross-Cultural Fellowship Program and the Honors Division of Indiana Uni- versity and by a Ford Foundation Political Science Faculty Research Fellowship. John V. Gillespie played a major role in stimulating our concern with the place of diffusion in cross-national research, and Ruth B. Collier provided helpful comments on earlier drafts of the article. We are obviously solely re- sponsible for the final form which the article has taken. 1 See Margaret Gordon, The Economics of Welfare Policies (New York: Columbia University Press, 1963); Phillips Cutright, Political Structure, Eco- nomic Development and National Social Security Programs, The American Journal of Sociology, 70 (March, 1965), 537-550; Phillips Cutright, Income Redistribution: A Cross-National Analysis, Social Forces, 46 (December, 1967), 180-190; Henry Aaron, Social Securitv: International Comparisons, in Otto Eckstein, ed., Studies in the Economics of Income Maintenance (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Insti- tution, 1967); Frederick Pryor, Public Expenditures in Communist and Capitalist Nations (Homewood, Ill.: erally used the timing of adoption to explain other aspects of the social security experience of nations, and not as an outcome that is itself to be explained.2 The present research is concerned with explaining the timing of the first adoption of so- cial security among the 59 countries which had formal political autonomy with regard to domes- tic policy at the time of first adoption (see Ap- pendix). The analysis focuses on two of the most im- portant explanations of social security develop- ment: the prerequisites explanation, which em- phasizes causes of social security development within nations, most commonly the level of social and economic modernization; and diffusion, which focuses on the imitation of social security programs among nations. These alternative theo- retical approaches have received very unequal at- tention in political research. The prerequisites approach has been widely used, particularly in the area of comparative politics.4 By contrast, George Allen and Unwin, Ltd., 1968); and Koji Taira and Peter Kilby, Differences in Social Se- curity Development in Selected Countries, Inter- national Social Security Review, 22 (1969), 139-153. 2 In quantitative research, the only exception of which we are aware is a two and a half page analysis in Appendix E-12 in Pryor, Public Expenditures. His- torical studies such as Gaston V. Rimlinger, Welfare Policy and Industrialization in Europe, America and Russia (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1971) have also attempted to explain timing of adoption. 3 This expression is used loosely here to refer to what Marion Levy has labeled functional and struc- tural prerequisites. In using the expression prerequi- sites, we are following his distinction between the prerequisites for the appearance of a given phenome- non and the requisites for its continued existence. See Marion J. Levy, Jr., The Structure of Society (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1952), pp. 62-63 and 71-72. 4Examples of cross-national studies that examine various forms of the prerequisites and requisites hypotheses (see footnote 3) with regard to demo- cratic political outcomes are S. M. Lipset, Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Develop- ment and Political Legitimacy, American Political Science Review, 53 (March, 1959), 69-105; James S. Coleman, Conclusion: The Political Systems of the Developing Areas, in Gabriel A. Almond and James S. Coleman, eds., The Politics of the Developing Areas (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1960) Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1676534

319 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Since glutamine PRPP amidotransferase activity was increased but the opposing enzyme, xanthine oxidase, was decreased in all the hepatomas, the reprogramming of gene expression results in an imbalance that favors synthesis against catabolism, which should confer selective advantages to the cancer cells.

313 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: It seems that operative excision offers the only chance of cure in children with these tumors and cure rates of 60% can be expected with hepatoblastoma and 33% in hepatocellular carcinoma if the tumor can be completely excised.

297 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
14 Nov 1975-Science
TL;DR: Rats direct social rather than eating behavior toward a stimulus rat that predicts the imminent delivery offood, suggesting that a predictive stimulus does not become a substitutefor a reward, but its characteristics elicit a particular subset of the responses commonly related to that reward.
Abstract: Rats direct social rather than eating behavior toward a stimulus rat that predicts the imminent delivery offood. This result suggests that a predictive stimulus does not become a substitutefor a reward, but its characteristics elicit and support a particular subset of the responses commonly related to that reward. them to approach and eat rapidly from the food tray when food was delivered. On the third day of pretraining, each subject received 30 10-second presentations of the stimulus rat. No food was delivered on this day. After the 11 acquisition sessions, all subjects received eight extinction sessions during which the predictive stimulus was presented as in acquisition, but no food was delivered. The behavior of the subjects in the presence of the predictive stimulus was recorded by an observer using a coding scheme modified from Peterson (10) and Grant and Mackintosh (8). On each presentation of the predictive stimulus the observer noted several behaviors, including: Orient, Approach, Sniff, Bite, and Social Contact (paw, groom, crawl-over, and anogenital sniff) (11). A reliability check of this coding scheme with a naive observer produced an average interobserver reliability of .99. The four panels of Fig. I show the median percentage of trials on which each group of five animals performed behaviors in the different categories. The group data adequately reflect the scores of the individual subjects. Figure IA shows that the Cs+ animals successively increased the frequency of Orient, Approach, Sniff, and Social Contact during the I1-day acquisition period, and successively decreased the frequency of these behaviors during extinction. The incidence of Bite was zero over all trs. The CSS animals also engaged in considerable behavior directed toward the stimulus rat, but their performance stabilized at a lower level than that of the CS+ animals (see Fig. I B). Over the last 5 days of acquisition the median scores of the animals in each group showed no overlap in Social Contact, Approach, and Sniff, and only a single common score in the case of Orient. During extinction, the scores of the animals in the CS+ and CSS groups overlapped considerably. The CS+ animals showed greater diversity of social contact than did the CSS animals. Table I shows the median individual scores over the last five acquisition trials for paw, groom, crawl-over, and anogenital sniff. All five CS+ animals showed paw, groom, and crawl-over behaviors, and three showed anogenital sniff. Of the five CSS animals, three showed paw, two showed groom, and only one showed crawl-over and anogenital sniff. Video tapes of a randomly selected animal in each group showed additional social postures for the CS+ animal, such as sideways and head-over postures (8). In comparison to both the CS+ and CSS groups, the CSr groups showed a marked 4 inhibition of approach behavior during ac-4 14 NOVEMBER 1975 quisition (see Fig. IC). With one exception, the animals oriented on less than 10 percent of the trials and all animals remained by the food tray during the presentation of the stimulus rat. No animal ever engaged in Social Contact. During extinction all behaviors except Social Contact appeared to recover and increase toward overlap with the scores of the CSS group. The CSW group showed an increase in Orient equivalent to that of the CS+ group, but little increase in Approach or Sniff, and no Social Contact score (see Fig. 1 D). These results appear to reflect a low level of conditioning to the block of wood. The relative absence of Approach in this group shows that Approach to the predictive rat in the CS+ group was not based on its predictive value alone. Conditioned Approach

183 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Peritoneal macrophages from the mouse are able to release a factor, which inhibits the incorporation of [ 3 H]thymidine into the DNA of lymphocytes, and this factor is thymidine, a degradation product of cells dying in culture.

176 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The profile of metabolic intermediates suggests that N6,O2′-dibutyryl adenosine 3′,5′-monophosphate inhibits the conversion of glycogen to pyruvate and lactate by decreasing the effectiveness of phosphofructokinase and pyruVate kinase.


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, a model nonlinear network involving chemical reactions and diffusion is studied and the time evolution and bounds on the steady state solutions of the dissipative structure type are found by bifurcation theory.

Journal ArticleDOI
David Knoke1
TL;DR: The relative abilities of dummy variable regression and log-linear models to locate significant relationships in systems of dichotomous variables are compared in this paper, showing that the latter is superior to regression since the data more readily meet the assumptions of the former.
Abstract: The relative abilities of dummy variable regression and log-linear models to locate significant relationships in systems of dichotomous variables are compared. On logical grounds log-linear models are superior to regression since the data more readily meet the assumptions of the former. Two illustrative examples suggest that the methods converge in their findings when the range in proportions of the dependent dichotomy is between .25 and. 75, but may differ on which effects are significant when proportions are more extreme. Substantive differences under the two methods are likely to be small, however.


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A reaction of urea, o-phthalaldehyde and N-(1-naphthyl)ethylenediamine is described for measurement of Urea by manual, continuous-flow, and kinetic methods, which agree well with those for a continuous- flow procedure in which diacetyl is a reagent.
Abstract: A reaction of urea, o-phthalaldehyde and N-(1-naphthyl)ethylenediamine is described for measurement of urea by manual, continuous-flow, and kinetic methods. The continuous-flow system requires 25 mu-l of sample; 40 samples can be analyzed per hour. The kinetic method requires no enzymes, has no lag phase, and has good sensitivity. A major advantage of the reaction is that it occurs at a temperature of 37 degrees C or lower. The results obtained by all three methods agree well with those for a continuous-flow procedure in which diacetyl is a reagent.

Journal ArticleDOI
A. Lenard1
TL;DR: In this article, a general mathematical model of a classical system of infinitely many point particles is studied, where the space X of infinite particle configurations is equipped with a natural topology as well as a measurable structure related to it.
Abstract: We study a general mathematical model of a classical system of infinitely many point particles. The space X of infinite particle configurations is equipped with a natural topology as well as a measurable structure related to it. It is also connected with a family {XA} of local spaces of finite configurations indexed by bounded open sets A in the one-particle space E. A theorem analogous to Kolmogoroff's fundamental theorem for stochastic processes is proved, according to which a consistent family {μA} of local probability measures μAdefined on the XAgives rise to a unique probability measure μ on X. We also study the problem of integral representation for positive linear forms defined over some linear space of real functions on X. We prove that a positive linear form F(f), defined for functions f in the class C+P, admits a uniquely determined integral representation F(f)=∝ f (ξ) dμ, where μ is a probability measure over X.


Journal ArticleDOI
Ting-Kai Li1
TL;DR: Findings suggest the possibility that these enzymes and glutathione may be functional in the spermatozoa of some animals as a protective mechanism against oxidative damage by H2O2 as has been demonstrated in other cells.
Abstract: The glutathione and thiol contents of spermatozoa and seminal plasma of several animal species have been examined. Washed, ejaculated or epididymal spermatozoa from man, dog. ram and goat were found to contain about 5 (I - 13) nmoles of glutathione per 10’ cells. Little or none was present in rabbit and boar spermatozoa. In contrast, the total thiol content of the sperm samples was 350 (95-700) nmoles/I0’ cells, but almost all of it was protein-bound. Dog and human seminal plasma similarly contained thiol groups which were almost entirely protein-bound. The concentration of glutathione in seminal plasma was less than 2 tiM. The spermatozoa which contained glutathione also exhibited substantial glutathione reductase and glutathione peroxidase activities. These findings suggest the possibility that these enzymes and glutathione may be functional in the spermatozoa of some animals as a protective mechanism against oxidative damage by H2O2. as has been demonstrated in other cells.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Hellman and Thompson as discussed by the authors discuss ontology, determination, and reduction in physicalism, and present an ontology-determination-reduction framework for ontology and reduction.
Abstract: Physicalism: Ontology, Determination, and Reduction Author(s): Geoffrey Paul Hellman and Frank Wilson Thompson Reviewed work(s): Source: The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 72, No. 17, Seventy-Second Annual Meeting of the American Philosophical Association Eastern Division (Oct. 2, 1975), pp. 551-564 Published by: Journal of Philosophy, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2025067 . Accessed: 14/10/2012 16:09

Book ChapterDOI
TL;DR: This chapter discuses the elementary arousal model, which focuses on the degree of emotional arousal, and proposes a more sophisticated theory to incorporate the various cognitive and arousal factors into a single model and demonstrates more specifically how they interact to determine the behavior.
Abstract: Publisher Summary This chapter presents a report of a program of research on emotional arousal in the facilitation of aggression through communication It focuses on emotional arousal that many communication messages, especially those presented in highly dramatic format, can elicit in most viewers, and suggests that this arousal can play a significant role in the degree to which the individual will engage in aggressive behavior Because a major factor motivating the present research is to test an alternative model to account for previous findings, the same basic methodological format has been adopted in the research program as well The chapter discuses the elementary arousal model, which focuses on the degree of emotional arousal, and it contends that physiological excitation serves to activate or energize behaviors without channeling itself toward any particular behavior It proposes a more sophisticated theory to incorporate the various cognitive and arousal factors into a single model and demonstrates more specifically how they interact to determine the behavior As this program of theoretical speculation and research has evolved, three different facets of the problem of the effect of communications on subsequent aggressive behavior have arisen Each addresses a different phase of the experimental procedure, thus focusing on a different component of the process

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the effect of protein size on 13C NMR NMR spectra was evaluated by comparing the 13C-1H dipolar mechanism and the nuclear Overhauser enhancements (NOE).


Journal ArticleDOI
J.E. Smith1, J.D. Lane1, P.A. Shea1, W.J. McBride1, M.H. Aprison1 
TL;DR: A rapid and sensitive method for separation and concurrent assay of 14 compounds at the picomole level in individual rat brain parts is described, using a radioenzymatic method and modified microadaptations of previously reported methods.

Journal ArticleDOI
A. Lenard1
TL;DR: In this article, it was shown that symmetry, positivity, and normalization are sufficient and sufficient conditions for ρ to be a correlation measure, and the main operative condition is (P) which says that ξφ(x)dρ≧0 must hold for every function φ for which Sφ (ξ)≧ 0 identically for ξ e X, where φ → S φ is a certain linear operator whose properties we study.
Abstract: This paper is devoted to the solution of the problem of characterizing correlation measures arising naturally in classical statistical mechanics of point particles. A correlation measure ρ must be related to a (not necessarily unique) probability measure μ over an infinite particle configuration space X by the formula μ(H)=∝NH(ξ)dμ where {NH} is a certain family of integer valued random variables. We prove that there are three conditions, namely (S) symmetry, (P) positivity, and (N) normalization, which together are sufficient as well as necessary for ρ to be a correlation measure. The main operative condition is (P), which says that ξφ(x)dρ≧0 must hold for every function φ for which Sφ(ξ)≧0 identically for ξ e X, where φ → Sφ is a certain linear operator whose properties we study. Condition (P) gives rise to a large class of inequalities satisfied by the ρ-measures of certain sets. The theory is also generalized to the case when there is a group of translations acting in the one-particle space, the concern then being with measures ρ as well as μ that are invariant with respect to the group.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The results indicate that echocardiography is a useful technique in the study and management of patients with acute myocardial infarction and by combining the measurements of left ventricular internal dimension and mitral valve closure, it was possible to predict hospital mortality from the eChocardiograms.
Abstract: Sixty-four patients with acute transmural myocardial infarction had daily echocardiograms while in the coronary care unit. Patients with previous infarction were excluded. The electrocardlographic site of infarction was anterior wall in 28, inferior wall in 33 and both anterior and inferior wall in 3 patients. Echocardiograms satisfactory for Interpretation were obtained in 92 percent of cases. Abnormal left ventricular wall motion corresponding to the electrocardiographic site of infarction was seen in the echocardiogram in 84 percent of cases. Exaggerated normal motion in noninfarcted areas was seen in 30 percent. The left ventricular internal dimension correlated with clinical heart failure ( P

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the many-body theory of the x-ray spectra of metals was extended to the entire spectrum, and it was shown that collective excitations do influence the whole spectrum, not just the edge.
Abstract: New analytical and numerical results are presented for the many-body theory of x-ray spectra of metals. A method is presented whereby the previous edge theory is extended to the entire spectrum. It is shown that collective excitations do influence the entire spectrum, and not just the edge. Numerical results are presented for Li, Na, Mg, and Al, and compared to experiment. This theory is able to explain the ${L}_{2,3}$ absorption-edge shape, and the entire emission spectrum of lithium.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: It was proposed that variations in the findings from skill group to skill group may be due in part to the nature of the task performed by each group.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This research investigated the question raised by Johannesson as to whether organization climate is redundant with job satisfaction, and found that climate and practices related to performance in a different manner than the satisfaction/performance relationship, which did not tend to support the redundancy hypothesis.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Thirty-three wild type strains of Rhodopseudomonas capsulata were examined for ability to engage in genetic recombination through mediation by “gene transfer agent” (GTA) particles, and it was demonstrated that the agent is species specific.
Abstract: Thirty-three wild type strains of Rhodopseudomonas capsulata were examined for ability to engage in genetic recombination through mediation by “gene transfer agent” (GTA) particles. The genetic exchange assays were based on capacity of strains to produce or receive GTA required for restoration of photosynthetic growth competence to a non-photosynthetic “white” mutant or for acquisition of resistance to rifampicin. A majority of the strains could either produce or receive GTA, and it was demonstrated that the agent is species specific. Possible relations between GTA and bacteriophages or bacteriocins were investigated. Sixteen types of virulent phages active on Rps. capsulata were isolated and their host ranges determined. Tests for transduction by the phages gave uniformly negative results. The viruses showed strict species specificity, but there was no apparent correlation between capacity of the Rps. capsulata strains to donate or receive GTA and susceptibility to the phages. A comparable survey disclosed that most of the bacterial strains were sensitive to or capable of producing bacteriocins; the latter also appear to be unrelated to GTA activity. The collection of bacterial strains was also screened for detection of lysogenic properties. None of the isolates is a “true” lysogen, but phages were detected in cultures of two strains, which may be “phage carriers” or pseudolysogens.