Arne Jensen

Chlorophylls of photosynthetic bacteria

Abstract 1. 1. The chlorophylls and the corresponding phaeophytins of 18 species of photosynthetic bacteria have been characterized by paper chromatography and by absorption spectra in visible light. 2. 2. Except for one species of Rhodopseudomonas which contained bacteriochlorophyll b, all the Thiorhodaceae (four) and the Athiorhodaceae (nine) species investigated as well as Rhodomicrobium vannielii had bacteriochlorophyll a as the only detectable chlorophyll. 3. 3. The chlorophyll-770 of Chlorobacteriaceae (four strains or species) was found to be spectroscopically and chromatographically identical with bacteriochlorophyll a. 4. 4. The chlorobium chlorophylls-650 and -660 were each separated by paper chromatography into three fractions. In the case of chlorobium chlorophyll-650 two of the fractions each gave rise to one phaeophytin, whereas the last fraction gave three phaeophytins. All phaeophytins had identical absorption spectra, but exhibited different RF-values on paper chromatograms. 5. 5. In addition to the chlorophylls mentioned above, all the species of the Chlorobacteriaceae contained trace amounts of a hitherto undescribed chlorophyllous pigment. 6. 6. A revision of the current nomenclature for bacterial chlorophyll is proposed.

Content of α-tocopherol in some blue-green algae

Abstract Three species of unicellular blue-green algae and one unicellular green alga contained 0.9–4.0 μg of α-tocopherol per g (dry weight). These levels are 1 to 2 orders of magnitude lower than those found earlier in multicellular brown algae.