The carbohydrate storage product made from glucose or galactose by F. nucleatum proved to be a polyglucose or glycogen. The use of the glycogen, made from either glucose or galactose, was spared when energy was available to the washed cells by fermenting amino acids. Glutamate, lysine and histidine, the amino acids previously shown to stimulate sugar transport, were the same ones which anaerobically suppressed glycogen use. Aerobically the amino acids had no effect on the loss of label from glycogen previously synthesized from glucose or galactose. Analysis of intermediates during glycogen use revealed that glucose was used by the Embden- Meyerhoff pathway by an organism which lacks a phosphoenolpyruvate phosphotransferase sugar transport system. Analysis of fermentation products obtained from cells using labeled preformed glycogen revealed that butyric acid was a product of the fermentation of sugars as well as amino acids. Washed cells from a culture of F. nucleatum, grown on a sugar free complex medium, were able to transport glucose or galactose without a lag if the anaerobic cell suspension was incubated with glutamate before the addition of the sugar. Sodium is important in the glutamate mediated stimulation of glucose transport and/or, glycogen synthesis by F. nucleatum. The ammonium salt of glutamic acid would not effectively stimulate glucose or galactose use unless sodium chloride was included in the incubation mixture. In addition, ammonium glutamate would not be used anaerobically by a cell suspension of F. nucleatum without sodium chloride.
