Cometabolism

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As co-metabolism that is metabolism of a substrate by a cell or a microorganism referred to, wherein the cell expresses neither energy gain from the metabolism refers nor the products of this metabolism ( metabolites ) may be utilized further. This metabolic process usually takes place parallel to the metabolism of another growth substrate from which the cell actually benefits. The metabolism, which is actually useless for the cell, is usually caused by the presence of non-specific enzymescaused. Since one always suspects another beneficial metabolic process, but does not know or can prove in all cases, one speaks of cometabolism even without knowledge of such a process.

Cometabolism leads to the formation of so-called dead-end metabolites , i.e. metabolic products whose further metabolism is no longer possible, mostly because the subsequent activities are more specific than the previous cometabolic transformation. If the cell fails to remove these dead-end metabolites and these are toxic , this leads to cell death. In some cases, such a metabolite can serve as a growth substrate for other members of a community.

Cometabolisms play a special role in the breakdown of xenobiotics and thus in soil remediation . It should be noted that the formation of the dead-end metabolites does not guarantee that the end product is less toxic than the starting compound.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Colin I. Mayfield: Biology 447: Environmental Microbiology. (PDF; 4.3 MB) In: colinmayfield.com. September 2008, p. 143 f. , accessed on April 24, 2017 .
  2. ↑ Johannes Hoffmann, Heike Viedt: Biological floor cleaning: A guide for practice . Springer-Verlag, Berlin / Heidelberg 2013, ISBN 978-3-642-58818-1 , p. 76 , doi : 10.1007 / 978-3-642-58818-1 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  3. ↑ Karl Stahr , Ellen Kandeler , Ludger Herrmann, Thilo Streck: Soil Science and Land Evaluation . 3. Edition. UTB, Stuttgart 2016, ISBN 978-3-8252-4687-7 , pp. 279 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  4. ↑ Heribert Cypionka: Fundamentals of microbiology . 4th edition. Springer-Verlag, Berlin / Heidelberg 2010, ISBN 978-3-642-05096-1 , p. 286 , doi : 10.1007 / 978-3-642-05096-1 .
  5. ↑ Müfit Bahadir, Harun Parlar, Michael Spiteller (ed.): Springer Umweltlexikon . 2nd Edition. Springer-Verlag, Berlin / Heidelberg 2000, ISBN 978-3-642-56998-2 , p. 279 , doi : 10.1007 / 978-3-642-56998-2 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  6. ↑ Georg Fuchs (Ed.): General Microbiology . 9th edition. Georg Thieme Verlag, Stuttgart 2014, ISBN 978-3-13-152149-1 , p. 383 ( limited preview in Google Book search).