A comparison of the patterns of extracellular proteins produced by the high alpha-toxin-secreting organism Staphylococcus aureus (Wood 46) during aerobic and anaerobic growth.

Staphylococcus aureus (Wood 46) was grown aerobically and anaerobically in supplemented 3% (w/v) Tryptone Soya Broth medium for 24 h at 37 degrees C. Although the bacterial density achieved was 9 times higher in the aerobic culture, the exoprotein produced per unit of bacterial dry weight was only 1.4 times higher than in the anaerobic culture. However, the SDS-PAGE patterns of extracellular proteins were quite different: the aerobic products occurred almost exclusively in the mol. wt range 15-30000 compared with 30-60000 for those produced anaerobically. The only major component common to both preparations was alpha-toxin which accounted for 2.4 times more of the total exoprotein under aerobic than under anaerobic conditions.