Stabilization of Adenosine-producing Mutants Derived from Bacillus sp. No. 1043

In the case of fermentative production of adenosine by the mutants derived from a Bacillus strain, abnormal fermentations due to the instability of mutants were frequently observed, and therefore studies were performed on the stabilization of mutants.

Among the genetic characteristics of adenosine-producing mutants, the xanthine-requirement was the most important factor and the adenosine productivity was found to decrease significantly as the number of revertants on this genetic marker increased. By using the media supplemented with excess amount of guanine sources, the increase of xanthine-non-requiring revertants both during the transfers on slants and in the preservation periods was perfectly suppressed. Secondly, an attempt was made to derive mutants in which no revertants would appear. Such mutants (‘NB-strains’) were selected by using a medium on which revertants appeared in a high frequency. One strain of the above mutants was found defective in XMP aminase.