Enzymes of Glucose Catabolism Pathways in Colletotrichum and Gloeosporium

SUMMARY

Respiratory enzymes of cultures of pathogenic Gloeosporium musarum Cke. & Mass. and saprophytic Colletotrichum gloeosporioides Penz. isolated from Central American bananas were studied using spectral changes of co-enzyme oxidation-reduction reactions as the criterion of measurement. Both fungi were similar in that they appeared to lack phosphorfructokinase, but showed activity in the enzymes associated with the pentose phosphate pathway. Pyruvate breakdown could proceed either to ethanol or via the citric acid cycle.

The only distinction noted between C. gloeosporioides grown on D-glucose and that grown on 2-deoxy-D-glucose was that in the latter case glutamic dehydrogenase was induced. Colletotrichum gloeosporioides grown on both sugars and G. musarum grown on D-glucose demonstrated an enzyme blockage at the glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase level in the presence of added 2-deoxy-D-glucose. The ability of C. gloeosporioides to utilize 2-deoxy-D-glucose as its sole carbon source is thought to depend upon the induction of a shunt from the pentose phosphate pathway.