The present paper deals with the alginase action of the alginic acid decomposing bacteria, Vibrio sp. SO-20 strain, reported in the previous paper. The results are summarized as follows: 1) The bacteria produced adaptively an enzyme, “alginase”, when grown on the synthetic medium containing alginic acid as a source of carbon. The crude enzyme was prepared from three day's culture on such medium. 2) The enzyme was found to belong to a so-called halophylic enzyme. 3) The optimum pH of the enzyme was 7.0-7.2. 4) The enzyme seems to be similar to “algin depolymerase” reported by EPPLEY and LASKER; in the alginase reaction a remarkable decrease of viscosity was observed before a small quantity of reducing sugar slightly appeared. 5) From the paper-chromatograph of the end-products of the alginase reaction, it was found that the enzyme hydrolyzed alginic acid to some oligouronides but not to free mannuronic acid.
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Katsuhiro Inoue (1961) studied this question.