Evidence For a Four-Sulphur Intermediate in Thiosulphate Oxidation by Thiobacillus X

Abstract

The autotrophic bacteria, Thiobacillus spp., oxidize thiosulphate to sulphate but the mechanism of this reaction is obscure (see Vishniac and Trodinger 1962). The suggestion that tetrathionate is an intermediate (Tamiya, Raga, and Huzisige 1941; Vishniac and Santer 1957; Jones and Happold 1961) has been contested by Ostrowski and Krawczyk (1957) and by Peck (1960), who have proposed that a scission of the thiosulphate molecule takes place prior to oxidation.