ABSTRACT
The clostridia, like other bacteria, possess the capacity to grow and survive under a variety of environmental conditions. They generally possess the capacity to metabolize a variety of different carbon sources, and they might have the ability to hydrolyze complex polymers (such as starch) into simple, more useful compounds (such as glucose or maltose) that may be transported directly into the cell to provide energy and carbon. This requires the synthesis of specific proteins. Although a bacterium can possess the capacity to produce such proteins, the precise protein content of the cell will vary depending on the environmental conditions in which it exists. This is true for clostridia; for example, Clostridium acetobutylicum can transport and metabolize sucrose, but intuitively it would appear inefficient to synthesize high levels of the enzymes required when this substrate is not available to the cell-and indeed this is the case, as the substrate is needed to induce enzyme synthesis [1].
