There is a striking contrast between the persistence of the spores of Bacillus anthracis in the soils of subtropical countries and the poor survival of the organism in soil of Great Britain. This is in spite of the constant re-infection of the soil here through the extensive reliance of British agriculture on dried bone fertilizers. An investigation has been undertaken into the effect of temper...

Methods for the immunological detection of Bacillus anthracis in various environmental samples and the discrimination of B. anthracis from other members of the B. cereus group are not yet well established. To generate specific discriminating antibodies, we immunized rabbits, mice, and chickens with inactivated B. anthracis spores and, additionally, immunized rabbits and mice with the tetrasacch...

Inhalational anthrax is initiated by the entry of Bacillus anthracis spores into the lung. A critical early event in the establishment of an infection is the dissemination of spores from the lung. Using in vitro cell culture assays, we previously demonstrated that B. anthracis spores are capable of entering into epithelial cells of the lung and crossing a barrier of lung epithelial cells withou...

The innate immune response of macrophages (Mphi) to spores, the environmentally acquired form of Bacillus anthracis, is poorly characterized. We therefore examined the early Mphi cytokine response to B. anthracis spores, before germination. Mphi were exposed to bacilli and spores of Sterne strain 34F2 and its congenic nongerminating mutant (DeltagerH), and cytokine expression was measured by re...

Live, attenuated strains of Bacillus anthracis lacking either the capsule plasmid pXO2, the toxin plasmid pXO1, or both were tested for their efficacy as vaccines against intravenous challenge with anthrax toxin in Fischer 344 rats and against aerosol or intramuscular challenge with virulent anthrax spores in Hartley guinea pigs. Animals immunized with toxigenic, nonencapsulated (pXO1+, pXO2-) ...

Several highly attenuated spore-forming nontoxinogenic and nonencapsulated Bacillus anthracis vaccines differing in levels of expression of recombinant protective antigen (rPA) were constructed. Biochemical analyses (including electrospray mass spectroscopy and N terminus amino acid sequencing) as well as biological and immunological tests demonstrated that the rPA retains the characteristics o...

AIMS To better understand the parameters that govern spore dissemination after lung exposure using in vitro cell systems. METHODS AND RESULTS We evaluated the kinetics of uptake, germination and proliferation of Bacillus anthracis Sterne spores in association with human primary lung epithelial cells, Calu-3 and A549 cell lines. We also analysed the influence of various cell culture medium for...

Spores of an acrystalliferous derivative of Bacillus thuringiensis subsp. kurstaki, termed Btcry-, are morphologically, aerodynamically, and structurally indistinguishable from Bacillus anthracis spores. Btcry- spores were dispersed in a large, open-ended barn together with spores of Bacillus atrophaeus subsp. globigii, a historically used surrogate for Bacillus anthracis Spore suspensions (2 ×...

The surface of dormant Bacillus anthracis spores consists of a multilayer of protein coats and a thick peptidoglycan layer that allow the cells to resist chemical and environmental insults. During germination, the spore coat is degraded, making the spore susceptible to chemical inactivation by antisporal agents as well as to mechanical inactivation by high-pressure or mechanical abrasion proces...