The effect of nalidixic acid on the cell cycle of synchronous Rhodopseudomonas palustris cultures.

The influence of the DNA synthesis inhibitor, nalidixic acid, on the properties of synchronous cultures of selected Rhodopseudomonas palustris swarmer cells was examined. There was little alteration in the changes in morphology, extinction, volume distribution and leucine incorporation up to bud development, and photosynthetic membrane lamellae were still synthesized de novo in the bud. However, there was no subsequent division, or flagellum or holdfast synthesis. Instead cells elongated by continued outgrowth of the abortive bud. Since DNA synthesis was also inhibited, this suggested a dependence of cell division, and flagellum and holdfast synthesis, on the completion of chromosome replication. By addition or removal of nalidixic acid at various times in the cell cycle, periods were demonstrated when the organism was insensitive to the antibiotic indicating that there was a pre-synthetic and post-synthetic gap in the pattern of DNA synthesis in R. palustris swarmers.