Chemical Investigations of Tubercle Bacillus Lipids: the Work of Rudolph J. Anderson
Year: 2008
Type: article
Abstract: THE SEPARATION OF LIPOID FRACTIONS FROM TUBERCLE BACILLIJournal of Biological ChemistryVol. 74Issue 3Preview Full-Text PDF Open AccessTHE CHEMISTRY OF THE LIPIDS OF TUBERCLE BACILLI: XXXV. THE CONSTITUTION OF PHTHIOCOL, THE PIGMENT ISOLATED FROM THE HUMAN TUBERCLE BACILLUSJournal of Biological ChemistryVol. 103Issue 1Preview Full-Text PDF Open Access The Separation of Lipoid Fractions from Tubercle Bacilli (Anderson, R. J. (1927) J. Biol. Chem. 74, 525–535) The Chemistry of the Lipids of Tubercle Bacilli. XXXV. The Constitution of Phthiocol, the Pigment Isolated from the Human Tubercle Bacillus (Anderson, R. J., and Newman, M. S. (1933) J. Biol. Chem. 103, 197–201) Rudolph John Anderson (1879–1961) was born in Harna, Sweden. When he was 13 years old, he moved to Boston, unescorted and unable to speak English. He was able to find work with a family in Cambridge and attended a grammar school from which he graduated at age 17. Unable to continue his education in high school, Anderson worked at various industrial jobs for several years while studying at night. One of his jobs was as laboratory boy and assistant to a chemist at a rubber manufacturing company. This led to a position at a small pharmaceutical company and eventually a position as chief chemist at a manufacturing pharmaceutical company in New Orleans in 1900. He stayed with this company for almost 10 years, eventually becoming Vice-President and General Manager. After hours, Anderson attended night classes at the New Orleans College of Pharmacy and graduated in 1903. He then enrolled part-time at Tulane University and graduated in 1906, doing a thesis in bacteriology titled, “The Common House-fly Considered as a Carrier of Bacterial Infection.” In 1909, Anderson returned to Sweden and applied for admission to the doctoral program at the University of Uppsala. Unfortunately, his application was repeatedly declined. Discouraged, he went to the University of Berlin where he was admitted to Emil Fischer's laboratory. However, because Fischer's laboratory was full, he was turned over to Hermann Leuchs and assigned a problem on the chemistry of the color reaction of brucine with nitric acid. He completed the work for his doctoral degree by 1911 but ran out of funds before he could take his final examination. Fortunately, Anderson's fellow student and friend, Donald Dexter Van Slyke (who was the author of a previous Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC) Classic (1Van Slyke D.D. Neill J.M. JBC ClassicsJ. Biol. Chem. 1924; 61: 523-543http://www.jbc.org/cgi/content/full/277/27/e16Abstract Full Text PDF Google Scholar)), had just received a cable from his father, who was chief chemist at the New York Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, New York, asking if he could recommend anyone for a position in the chemical laboratory at Geneva. As a result, Anderson arrived in Geneva soon after and was assigned the task of studying the metabolism of dairy cows on a ration deficient in phytin. “I knew nothing about cows except that they sometimes gave milk, I knew absolutely nothing about metabolism, and I had never heard of phytin,” recalled Anderson (2Vickery H.B. Biographical Memoir of Rudolph John Anderson. 36. National Academy of Sciences, Washington D. C.1962: 19-50Google Scholar). “I asked the director about phytin and what it was. He himself knew very little about phytin except that it was an organic phosphorus compound that occurred in wheat bran.” Anderson decided that his salvation lay in the chemistry of phytin and convinced the director that it would be desirable to know more about phytin before undertaking long and expensive studies with dairy cows. Thus began the investigations of phytin that laid the foundation for his reputation. He published 8 papers in less than 2 years, and in 1914 he returned to Germany to complete work on his doctoral degree. However, the war interrupted his studies and made it necessary for him to leave Berlin. He returned to Geneva and resumed his work on phytin but also expanded his research to include the volatile aromatic oils found in animal urine and spent several months with Graham Lusk at Cornell Medical College learning about animal calorimetry. When the United States entered the war, Anderson volunteered and was commissioned as a Captain in the Sanitary Corps in the Division of Food and Nutrition. He was discharged in 1919, but before returning to Geneva, he completed the requirements for his Ph.D. in Lusk's laboratory. Anderson returned to Geneva as Chief Biochemist and Professor at Cornell University. His initial research focused on the dietary polyneuritis of poultry and the chemistry and genetics of grape pigments. He then turned his attention to the nucleic acids of plants, but got side-tracked and initiated a long series of investigations into the sterols present in the oils of plant seeds. This led to Anderson's relocation to Yale University in 1926 where he began to work on isolating the sterols of the tubercle bacillus. He was unable to find any sterol-like substances in tubercle bacillus and instead concentrated on the substances present in the fat solvent-soluble material of the organism, which is the subject of the two JBC Classic papers reprinted here. In the first Classic, Anderson details his methods for isolating the various lipoid and carbohydrate fractions in bacillus. To ensure that the isolated lipoid material was similar to that found in living cells, Anderson needed to guard against changes induced by heat and oxidation. He did this by extracting moist, living bacilli at room temperature with a mixture of alcohol and ether followed by extraction with chloroform. All the while he excluded oxygen from his experiments by maintaining an atmosphere of carbon dioxide. Anderson was able to separate the lipoid constituents of tubercle bacilli into three groups consisting of wax, glycerides, and phosphatides. In the second Classic, Anderson describes the constitution of phthiocol, a fat-soluble pigment he isolated from human tubercle bacillus. He determined that the previously unknown substance was in fact 2-methyl-3-hydroxy-1,4-naphthaquinone. Anderson later examined the fatty substances contained in the avian and bovine strains of tubercle bacillus as well as the nonpathogenic timothy grass bacillus and the leprosy bacillus. He eventually became Professor of Chemistry at Yale and held this post until retiring as Professor Emeritus in 1948. Shortly before his retirement, Anderson had an exhibit prepared to show the numerous substances that had resulted from his investigations. The exhibit, numbering some 300 sealed tubes, stood in the main corridor of the Sterling Chemical Laboratory at Yale and was arranged to demonstrate the origin of each pure product from the fractions of crude lipid obtained from the various organisms. In addition to his research endeavors, Anderson served as Managing Editor of the Journal of Biological Chemistry from 1937 to 1958. During his time as editor, the circulation of the journal increased nearly 4-fold, and the number of pages printed annually nearly doubled. Anderson read every manuscript that was submitted to the Journal during his time as editor and never let any manuscript be rejected until he had examined it to see if some nugget of wisdom or scientific discovery could be saved. In 1958, on his retirement as managing editor, the December issue of the JBC was dedicated to Anderson (3Vickery H.B. To Rudolph J. Anderson. J. Biol. Chem. 1958; 233: 1249-1250PubMed Google Scholar). It contained his picture along with papers contributed in his honor by his associates on the successive editorial boards and editorial committees who had served under him. Anderson was elected President of the American Society of Biological Chemists (now the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology) in 1941 and to membership in the National Academy of Sciences in 1946. That same year he became a member of the Connecticut Academy of Sciences, and in 1947 he was awarded the honorary degree of M.D. by the University of Lund. He received the Trudeau Medal of the National Tuberculosis Association in 1948 and was made an honorary member of the Connecticut Medical Society in 1951. 1Biographical information on Rudolph J. Anderson was taken from Ref. 2Vickery H.B. Biographical Memoir of Rudolph John Anderson. 36. National Academy of Sciences, Washington D. C.1962: 19-50Google Scholar.1Biographical information on Rudolph J. Anderson was taken from Ref. 2Vickery H.B. Biographical Memoir of Rudolph John Anderson. 36. National Academy of Sciences, Washington D. C.1962: 19-50Google Scholar.
Source: Journal of Biological Chemistry
Language: English
Subfield: History and Philosophy of Science
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,430
OpenAlex ID: W1500639623