Rupture of the cell envelope by induced intracellular gas phase expansion in gas vacuolate bacteria.

Using a new approach, we estimated the physical strength of the cell envelopes of three species of gram-negative, gas vacuolate bacteria (Microcyclus aquaticus, Prosthecomicrobium pneumaticum, and Meniscus glaucopis). Populations of cells were slowly (0.5 to 2.9 h) saturated with argon, nitrogen, or helium to final pressures up to 100 atm (10, 132 kPa). The gas phases of the vesicles remained intact and, upon rapid (1 to 2 s) decompression to atmospheric pressure, expanded and ruptured the cells; loss of colony-forming units was used as an index of rupture. Because the cell envelope is the cellular component most likely to resist the expanding intracellular gas phase, its strength can be estimated from the minimum gas pressures that produce rupture. The viable counts indicated that these minimum pressures were between 25 and 50 atm; the majority of the cell envelopes were ruptured at pressures between 50 and 100 atm. Cells in which the gas vesicles were collapsed and the gas phases were effectively dissolved by rapid compression tolerated decompression from much higher gas saturations. Cells that do not normally possess gas vesicles (Escherichia coli) or that had been prevented from forming them by addition of L-lysine to the medium (M. aquaticus) were not harmed by decompression from gas saturation pressures up to 300 atm.