The specific activities of 13 aminoacyl-soluble ribonucleic acid (sRNA) synthetases were measured at various time intervals during the germination of Botryodiplodia theobromae conidiospores. The enzyme activities were low or absent in ungerminated spores, and they increased rapidly as germination proceeded. When extracts of the ungerminated spores were prepared with mortar and pestle, very litt...

New methods and technology are needed to quickly and accurately detect potential biological warfare agents, such as Bacillus anthracis, causal agent of anthrax in humans and animals. Here, we report the detection of a simulant of B. anthracis (B. globigii) alone and in a mixture with a different species of Bacillus to test non-specific interference using a portable surface plasmon resonance (SP...

Dynamic processes during wet-heat treatment of individual spores of Bacillus cereus, Bacillus megaterium, and Bacillus subtilis at 80 to 90°C were investigated using dual-trap Raman spectroscopy, differential interference contrast (DIC) microscopy, and nucleic acid stain (SYTO 16) fluorescence microscopy. During spore wet-heat treatment, while the spores' 1:1 chelate of Ca(2+) with dipicolinic ...

High-level heat resistance of spores of Bacillus thermoamylovorans poses challenges to the food industry, as industrial sterilization processes may not inactivate such spores, resulting in food spoilage upon germination and outgrowth. In this study, the germination and heat resistance properties of spores of four food-spoiling isolates were determined. Flow cytometry counts of spores were much ...

Spores of Bacillus subtilis have a thick outer layer of relatively insoluble protein called the coat, which protects spores against a number of treatments and may also play roles in spore germination. However, elucidation of precise roles of the coat in spore properties has been hampered by the inability to prepare spores lacking all or most coat material. In this work, we show that spores of a...

Clostridium difficile, a spore-forming bacterium, causes antibiotic-associated diarrhea. In order to produce toxins and cause disease, C. difficile spores must germinate and grow out as vegetative cells in the host. Although a few compounds capable of germinating C. difficile spores in vitro have been identified, the in vivo signal(s) to which the spores respond were not previously known. Exami...

BACKGROUND Chlorhexidine is a broad-spectrum antimicrobial commonly used to disinfect the skin of patients to reduce the risk of healthcare-associated infections. Because chlorhexidine is not sporicidal, it is not anticipated that it would have an impact on skin contamination with Clostridium difficile, the most important cause of healthcare-associated diarrhea. However, although chlorhexidine ...

Clostridium difficile is the causative agent of the most frequently reported nosocomial diarrhea worldwide. The high incidence of recurrent infection is the main clinical challenge of C. difficile infections (CDI). Formation of C. difficile spores of the epidemic strain R20291 has been shown to be essential for recurrent infection and transmission of the disease in a mouse model. However, the u...

lamerin microspridia (lbms) isolated from lamerin breed of the silkworm, bombyx mori, l. and the standard strain nosema bombycis, were induced to germinate artificially by two-step procedure. fresh percoll purified spores were activated by incubating them in potassium hydroxide solution (koh) (ph 11.00) and germinated artificially by using phosphate buffer saline (pbs), (ph 7.00). germinated sp...

An enzyme extracted from Bacillus cereus spores caused to germinate spores of this organism which had been sensitized by reagents which rupture disulphide bonds. Inactivation of the enzyme by thiol-blocking agents and by oxidation, and reactivation by reduction suggested that the enzyme’s ability to germinate spores depended on thiol groups. No evidence was obtained to support the hypothesis th...