Tetrazolium red

[benedik at uh.edu]

In article <3miujb$rht at highway.LeidenUniv.nl>
Email (YourName) writes:

> 
> I use tetrazolium red to indicate metabolic activity of micro-organisms 
> (Pseudomonads) on certain carbon sources. Some references point to the 
> usefulness of this method, e.g. J.Lederberg showed that:
> 
> - bacteria grown on non- acidifying carbon sources in the agar plate turn 
>   tetrazolium red to a red color;
> - bacteria grown on acidifying carbon sources (fermentation: glucose, 
>   lactose) do not convert terazolium
> 
> 
> My problem is, that I seem unable to find out, or at least get some 
> literature, on the bacterial enzymes and reactions that convert 
> tetrazolium. Lederberg wrote about a "dehydrogenase".
> 
> Can anyone give some hints where to look in literature ??
> 
> 
> Just wondering what I'm looking at......
> 
> thanks in advance,
> 
> Marco Simons
> Institute for molecular plant sciences
> Clusius laboratory
> Leiden University
> Wassenaarseweg 64
> Leiden, the Netherlands
> 
> SBY3MS at RULSFB.LEIDENUNIV.NL 


Tetrazolium  is acting as a pH indicator.


Michael Benedik               benedik at uh.edu
Biochemical Sciences
University of Houston
Houston, TX 77204-5934