Inhibition of glucose metabolism by n-hexadecane in Cladosporium (Amorphotheca) resinae.

When Cladosporium resinae is provided with n-hexadecane and glucose, n-hexadecane is used preferentially. Studies using [14C]glucose indicated that n-hexadecane did not inhibit glucose uptake but did retard oxidation of glucose to CO2 and assimilation of glucose carbon into trichloroacetic acid-insoluble material. Glucose could be recovered quantitatively from hydrocarbon-grown cells that had been transferred to glucose. Four enzymes that may be involved in glucose metabolism, hexokinase, glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase, glucose-phosphate isomerase, and succinate dehydrogenase, were not detected in cells grown on hexadecane but were present in cells grown on glucose. Addition of hexadecane to extracts of glucose-grown cells resulted in immediate loss of activity for each of the four enzymes, but two other enzymes did not directly involved in glucose metabolism, adenosine triphosphatase and alanine-ketoacid aminotransferase, were not inhibited by hexadecane in vitro. Cells grown on hexadecane and transferred to glucose metabolize intracellular hexadecane; after 1 day, activity of hexokinase, glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase, glucosephosphate isomerase, and succinate dehydrogenase could be detected and 22% of the intracellular hydrocarbon had been metabolized. Hexadecane-grown cells transferred to glucose plus cycloheximide showed the same level of activity of all the four enzymes as cells transferred to glucose alone. Thus, intracellular n-hexadecane or a metabolite of hexadecane can inthesis of those enzymes is not inhibited.