Abstract
SUMMARY: Nocardia opaca, a flavobacterium and certain other bacteria, when grown on o-nitrobenzoate, accumulated anthranilate in the medium in the early stages of growth. The subsequent disappearance of this metabolite in growing cultures was always correlated with the appearance of an anthranilate oxidase system in the organisms. This phenomenon has the features of a typical enzyme adaptation except that the inducer is a by-product of the cells own metabolism; hence it has been termed metabolite induction. The results confirm previous suggestions that, in these micro-organisms, anthranilate is not an obligatory intermediate in the direct energy-producing pathway of o-nitrobenzoate breakdown but is produced in a side reaction.