INCORPORATION OF EXOGENONS LONG-CHAIN ALCOHOLS INTO BACTERIOCHLOROPHYLL-C HOMOLOGS BY CHLOROFLEXUS-AURANTIACUS

Chloroflexus aurantiacus grown in batch culture took up exogenous alco hols and incorporated these into bacteriochlorophyll c as the esterify ing alcohol. It was possible to change the distribution of the natural ly occurring homologs of bacteriochlorophyll c esterified with phytol, hexadecanol, and octadecanol by adding the appropriate alcohol. The c orresponding homolog then made up at least 60% of the cellular bacteri ochlorophyll c. It was also possible to obtain novel bacteriochlorophy ll homologs not found in detectable amounts in control cells by adding fatty alcohols with short chains (C10, C12) or long chains (C20). The se changes in bacteriochlorophyll composition had no detectable effect s on the spectral properties of the chlorosomes.