Alan Antoine was the former Chair & Professor Emeritus, Department of Biochemistry & Microbiology, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ. He was also Associate Dean of Cook College (now School of Environmental & Biological Sciences). Alan was a lifetime member and past president (1980-81) of the Theobald Smith Society and the Waksman Honorary Lecture recipient in 1997.
Professor Antoine obtained his B.S. from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He then did his graduate work at the Johns Hopkins University-Leonard Wood Memorial Leprosy Research Laboratory and Department of Pathobiology, School of Hygiene and Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland. His graduate work involved the biochemistry and growth characteristics of Mycobacterium sp. (1‑6). After receiving his D.Sc. in 1967, he was an NIH postdoc at the Department of Biology, McCollum-Pratt Institute, Johns Hopkins University where he studied the biochemistry of Neurospora crassa mutants (7).
He joined the Dept. of Biochemistry & Microbiology at Rutgers in 1969 where he received funding from Ethicon, a manufacturer of surgical sutures and wound closure devices (subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson), to study the efficacy of radiation sterilization processes (8‑10). His lab also continued work on Neurospora crassa mutants (11).
Antoine’s lab became interested bacterial nitrogen metabolism and began studying the degradation of organic nitrile pollutants, such as acetonitrile and propionitrile by the bacterium Nocardia rhodochrous (12) . They also studied the difficult biodegradation of high-molecular-weight acrylonitrile-methylacrylate-butadiene terpolymer using Nocardia rhodochrous and also the fungus Penicillium notatum (13). Moving on to natural environmental nitrogen biotransformations, they first studied denitrification in low oxygen NJ salt marsh soils that reduced nitrate into nitrite, nitric oxide, nitrous oxide, and finally to dinitrogen gas (14). The lab also studied nitrogen fixation by cyanobacterial symbionts of Azolla sp., aquatic ferns traditionally cultivated as a bio-fertilizer in wetland paddies and finding increasing use for sustainable production of livestock feed. The fatty acid composition of the bacterial symbionts by GC-MS revealed similarities with, but also significant differences from free-living nitrogen fixing cyanobacterial Anabaena sp. and Nostoc sp. and therefore may have been different sub- species or distinct taxons (15‑17). Professor Antoine retired in 2007.
Sandra, his wife of 62 years, his daughter Cara and son Edan were by his side, holding his hands, when Alan passed away on October 20, 2024.
References
1. Antoine, AD, Tepper, BS. 1969. Environmental control of glycogen and lipid content of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Journal of Bacteriology 100:538–539. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/4981064
2. Antoine, AD, Tepper, BS. 1969. Environmental control of glycogen and lipid content of Mycobacterium phlei. Journal of General Microbiology 55:217–226. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/5764733
3. Antoine, AD, Tepper, BS. 1969. Characterization of glycogens from Mycobacteria. Archives of Biochemistry and Biophysics 134:207–213. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0003986169902677
4. Antoine, AD, Morrison, NE. 1968. Effect of iron nutrition on the bound hydroxylamine content of Mycobacterium phlei. Journal of Bacteriology 95:245–246. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/5636824
5. Morrison, NE, Antoine, AD, Dewbrey, EE. 1965. Synthetic metal chelators which replace the natural growth-factor requirements of Arthrobacter terregens. Journal of Bacteriology 89:1630. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14291610
6. Antoine, AD, Morrison, NE, Hanks, JH. 1964. Specificity of improved methods for mycobactin bioassay by Arthrobacter terregens. Journal of Bacteriology 88:1672–1677. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14240956
7. Nason, A, Antoine, AD, Ketchum, PA, Frazier, WA, Lee, DK. 1970. Formation of assimilatory nitrate reductase by in vitro inter-cistronic complementation in Neurospora crassa. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 65:137–144. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/4391854
8. Parisi, AN, Antoine, AD. 1977. Alterations in radiation resistance of Bacillus pumilus E601 spores. Radiation Research 69:367–375. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/841009
9. Parisi, AN, Antoine, AD. 1975. Characterization of Bacillus pumilus E601 spores after single sublethal gamma irradiation treatments. Applied Microbiology 29:34–39. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1110491
10. Parisi, A, Antoine, AD. 1974. Increased radiation resistance of vegetative Bacillus pumilus. Applied Microbiology 28:41–46. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/4844266
11. Antoine, AD. 1974. Purification and properties of the nitrate reductase isolated from Neurospora crassa mutant nit-3. Kinetics, molecular weight determination, and cytochrome involvement. Biochemistry 13:2289–2294. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/4275465
12. DiGeronimo, MJ, Antoine, AD. 1976. Metabolism of acetonitrile and propionitrile by Nocardia rhodochrous LL100-21. Applied & Environmental Microbiology 31:900–906. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/938041
13. Antoine, AD, Dean, AV, Gilbert, SG. 1980. Alteration of Acrylonitrile-Methylacrylate-Butadiene Terpolymer by Nocardia rhodochrous and Penicillium notatum. Applied & Environmental Microbiology 39:777–781. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16345541
14. George, US, Antoine, AD. 1982. Denitrification potential of a salt marsh soil: effect of temperature, pH and substrate concentration. Soil Biology and Biochemistry 14:117–125. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0038071782900542
15. Caudales, R, Wells, JM, Antoine, AD, Butterfield, JE. 1995. Fatty acid composition of symbiotic cyanobacteria from different host plant (Azolla) species: evidence for coevolution of host and symbiont. International Journal of Systematic Bacteriology 45:364–370. https://doi.org/10.1099/00207713-45-2-364
16. Caudales, R, Moreau, RA, Wells, JM, Antoine, AD. 1992. Cellular lipid and fatty acid composition of cyanobionts from Azolla caroliniana. Symbiosis 14:191–196.
17. Caudales, R, Wells, JM, Antoine, AD. 1992. Cellular fatty acid composition of symbiotic cyanobacteria isolated from the aquatic fern Azolla. Microbiology 138:1489–1494. https://doi.org/10.1099/00221287-138-7-1489
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