Abstract— The influence of amino acid prestarvation on both the resistance to u.v. light and excision of thymine dimers of bacterial strains E. coli B/r hcr+ thy‐ trp‐, E. coli B/r hcr‐thy‐trp‐, and E, coli 15 T‐ 555–7 thy‐meth‐trp‐arg‐ has been studied. The prestarvation increased the resistance of all the strains but reasonably inhibited excision of thymine dimers. Thus the enhancement of u.v. resistance after amino acid prestarvation was not due to more complete excision of thymine dimers.

Changes in the resistance of cells of Escherichia coli B/r Hcr+ thytrpto ultraviolet radiation were investigated after the following pretreatments: (i) amino acid starvation which, according to previous conclusions, enabled the cells to complete replication cycles of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA); (ii) amino acid starvation during which the synthesis of DNA was arrested by the addition of 50 ,ug of cytidine per ml. The results showed that the enhancement of resistance observed after amino acid prestarvation was in correlation with the amount of DNA which was synthesized during the amino acidless period. The enhancement of resistance can be abolished by the addition of the riboside at any phase of the starvation period. This shows that the enhancement of resistance was not a consequence of the total inhibition of metabolism but of unbalanced growth which evoked the completion of replication cycles of DNA.