Laboratories of The Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research.
J Exp Med. 1947 Jan 1;85(1):9-22. doi: 10.1084/jem.85.1.9.
Long chain fatty acids have been found to exhibit both inhibitory and stimulatory effects on the growth of tubercle bacilli and of a certain unidentified micrococcus culture. The toxicity of the fatty acids was much reduced or abolished by (a) esterification, even when the resulting product was a water-soluble ester, and (b) addition of crystalline serum albumin to the culture medium; other proteins tested were inactive in this respect. Marked growth stimulation of the microorganisms studied was obtained when certain long chain fatty acids were added to the culture medium in the form of their water-soluble esters, or in admixture with adequate amounts of serum albumin. Abundant growth of the micrococcus resulted from the addition of oleic, linoleic, linolenic, or arachidonic acid (0.0001 to 0.001 per cent) to a mineral medium containing glucose as sole source of carbon; in the case of this microbial species, none of the other substances tested could substitute for these unsaturated fatty acids. Enhancement of growth of tubercle bacilli was obtained by adding to the medium 0.001 to 0.01 per cent of a variety of fatty acids (saturated or unsaturated) even in the absence of glucose or of any other readily available carbon compound. These results suggest that long chain fatty acids can affect the growth of different microbial species through different metabolic channels and that, in order to study the mechanism of these metabolic and growth reactions, it is essential to use the fatty acids under conditions where they cannot manifest their toxic properties.
长链脂肪酸被发现对结核分枝杆菌和某种未鉴定的微球菌培养物的生长具有抑制和刺激作用。脂肪酸的毒性通过以下两种方法大大降低或消除：(a)酯化，即使得到的产物是水溶性酯；(b)在培养基中添加结晶血清白蛋白；其他测试的蛋白质在这方面没有活性。当某些长链脂肪酸以其水溶性酯的形式或与足够量的血清白蛋白混合添加到培养基中时，研究的微生物的生长明显受到刺激。微球菌的大量生长是由于在含有葡萄糖作为唯一碳源的矿物培养基中添加油酸、亚油酸、亚麻酸或花生四烯酸（0.0001 至 0.001%）所致；对于这种微生物物种，测试的其他物质都不能替代这些不饱和脂肪酸。向培养基中添加 0.001 至 0.01%的各种脂肪酸（饱和或不饱和），即使在没有葡萄糖或任何其他易获得的碳化合物的情况下，也能促进结核分枝杆菌的生长。这些结果表明，长链脂肪酸可以通过不同的代谢途径影响不同微生物物种的生长，并且为了研究这些代谢和生长反应的机制，必须在脂肪酸不能表现出其毒性的条件下使用它们。
