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The Action of the Ciliates of the Sheep’s Rumen upon Various Water-soluble Carbohydrates, Including Polysaccharides
Abstract
SUMMARY: When holotrich ciliates of hay-fed sheep’s rumen acted upon water-soluble carbohydrates under conditions comparable with those in the rumen save for the absence of appreciable bacterial competition, only glucose, fructose, sucrose, inulin, bacterial levan (from Bacillus megatherium) and to a lesser extent celloblose were utilized for rapid and extensive storage of iodophilic polysaccharide granules (cf. Oxford, 1951). No other soluble carbohydrate tried (including maltose) was so utilized. When polysaccharide storage did take place the product always gave a purple colour with iodine, and had the properties of a starch rather than glycogen in that it gave an insoluble iodine complex under the conditions of Pucher, Leaven-worth & Vickery (1948). Storage of starch by oligotrich ciliates was much slower than with holotrichs, and did not take place with cellobiose as substrate, Holotrich ciliates continued to replace themselves in the sheep's rumen even when large volumes of rumen contents were periodically withdrawn over a long period. The protozoan starch could be isolated in about 1% yield by application of the Pucher et al. (1948) method direct to the dry matter of strained rumen liquor taken from sheep which had grazed on starch-free Spring grass.
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© Society for General Microbiology 1951