OCR Text |
Show Causes of Plant Cancer Are Sought in Bacillus New York. A phosphorus-containing material, relatives rela-tives of which are found in the human brain and liver, has been isolated by Drs. Er-win Er-win Chargaff and Michael Levine of the College of Physicians Phy-sicians and Surgeons at Columbia Co-lumbia university and Monte-fiore Monte-fiore hospital from the body of a bacillus that causes tumors tu-mors in plants. In plants there is a well-known disease, the crown-gall, which bears a slight resemblance -to tumors in animals. It is produced by the bacillus ba-cillus tumefaciens. Using the chemical methods developed de-veloped by Dr. R. J. Anderson of Yale university, who recently purified puri-fied an acid from tubercle bacilli which produces symptoms of tuberculosis tuber-culosis itself when injected into an animal, they are engaged in analyzing analyz-ing the crown-gall germ. Their first results show that it contains a phosphatide phos-phatide which stimulates rapid cell multiplication in plants. |