Inhibition of Cell Division by Carbon Dioxide

Abstract

A DEMONSTRATION of utilization of carbon dioxide by propionic acid bacteria¹ drastically changed the long-entertained idea that carbon dioxide played only an indirect part in heterotrophic growth, by utilization of organic substances produced in autotrophic assimilation. After later evidence indicated that growth of many bacterial cultures stopped below a minimum concentration of carbon dioxide, the opinion gained support that heterotrophs, and indeed all living cells, can utilize, and possibly even require, carbon dioxide for growth and reproduction². Reproduction on a cellular level means cell multiplication. The requirement for carbon dioxide in cell multiplication could not be proved or disproved until a technique was developed enabling separation of growth from cell division^3,4.