A general model for use in interpreting dielectric data obtained with bacterial endospores is developed and applied to past results for Bacillus cereus spores and new results for Bacillus megaterium spores. The latter were also subjected to a decoating treatment to yield dormant cells with damaged outer membranes that could be germinated with lysozyme. For both spore types, core ions appeared t...

The fungus Ascosphaera apis, the causative agent of chalkbrood disease in honeybee larvae, occurs throughout the world and is found in many beekeeping areas of Argentina. The potential as biocontrol agents of 249 aerobic spore-forming bacterial antagonists isolated from honey samples was evaluated. Each isolate was screened against A. apis by a central disk test assay. Ten bacterial strains tha...

The major citrate synthase of Bacillus subtilis (CS-II) was purified to near homogeneity and shown to correspond to the product of the citZ gene. Accumulation of CS-II during exponential growth and stationary phases paralleled expression of the citZ gene. The physical and kinetic properties of CS-II were similar to those of citrate synthase enzymes from Bacillus megaterium and from eukaryotic c...

A bacterial strain producing an extracellular ß-amylase, designated KYJ 963, was isolated from Korean saltfermented anchovy (anchovy-jeot). A nearly complete nucleotide sequence of a 16S ribosomal RNA from the isolate was determined. On the basis of the results of 16S ribosomal DNA sequence, cellular fatty acid composition, sensitivity test to antibiotics and so on, the strain KYJ 963 was ident...

BACKGROUND Recombinant antibodies are essential reagents for research, diagnostics and therapy. The well established production host Escherichia coli relies on the secretion into the periplasmic space for antibody synthesis. Due to the outer membrane of gram-negative bacteria, only a fraction of this material reaches the medium. Recently, the gram-positive bacterium Bacillus megaterium was show...

Megacins A-216 and A-19213 in Bacillus megaterium are plasmid encoded, as shown by analysis of cured, non-megacinogenic (Meg-) derivatives of strains 216 and ATCC 19213 and by polyethylene glycol-mediated protoplast transformation of Meg- bacteria with plasmid DNA. The results of both techniques implicated a 31-megadalton plasmid, pBM309, in megacin A-216 production and a 29-megadalton plasmid,...

Weibull (1953a) has shown that after osmotic lysis of protoplasts of Bacillus megaterium, prepared by controlled treatment with lysozyme, only two microscopically detectable structures remain; membrane-like bodies termed "ghosts," and granules. The ghosts were found to sediment as a dark yellow fraction by centrifugation at 10,000 G (Weibull, 1953b) and to contain almost all the pigmented mater...

Determination by amino acid analyses of the percentage of diaminopimelic acid in the spore cortex of Bacillus megaterium and Bacillus subtilis which is involved in interpeptide cross-links gave values of 31 to 37%. This finding supports the idea that the cortex volume could undergo significant changes in response to changes in pH or ionic strength and could thus play an active role in reducing ...