The respiratory chain and proton electrochemical gradient in the alkalophile Bacillus pasteurii [proceedings].

It is also noteworthy that the maximum phosphorylation potential that may be generated by the vesicles (approx. 53.8kJ/mol) (Kell et al., 1978~) was not altered when the rate of NADH oxidation was inhibited by up to 60 %. The corollary of this result is that if Ap is poised at equilibrium with the phosphorylation potential then, as the phosphorylation potential does not decline when NADH oxidation is inhibited, our finding that Ap is not decreased on addition of rotenone is to be expected. The data presented above show that the resistance (or, more likely, the capacitance) of the P. denitrificans membrane must be variable. Both these data, and those of other workers (Casadio et al., 1978; Kupriyanov & Pobochin, 1978) would seem to point to the need to consider more localized factors in biomembrane energy-transduction processes. In this regard it may be profitable to utilize membrane models containing 3 capacitors in series (e.g. Andersen et al., 1978; cf. Bockris & Reddy, 1970).