Dormant bacterial spores do not take up and bind nucleic acid dyes in the spore core but readily take up such dyes when they are fully germinated. We present a methodology that combines fluorescence microscopy, phase contrast microscopy, and laser tweezers Raman spectroscopy to monitor the kinetics of uptake of the nucleic acid dye SYTO 16 during germination of individual Bacillus cereus and Ba...

BACKGROUND Bacillus anthracis is a pathogen that causes life-threatening disease--anthrax. B. anthracis spores are highly resistant to extreme temperatures and harsh chemicals. Inactivation of B. anthracis spores is important to ensure the environmental safety and public health. The 2001 bioterrorism attack involving anthrax spores has brought acute public attention and triggered extensive rese...

Spores of the genus Alternaria belong to one of the most prevailing constituents of the air in all regions of the world. They form infectious inoculum of numerous plant species as well as severe inhaled allergies. The aim of this study was to compare the biological pollution with Alternaria spores of the air of 12 cities located in central and eastern Europe. The experiment was done in 2010 and...

The heat resistance of the spores of six species of bacteria varied with water activity (a,) at which the spores were heated, although the magnitude of the changes differed greatly between species. At all a, values there was an approximately linear relation between the logarithm of the number of viable spores and the time of heating. The slopes of these straight lines were used to describe the ...

Germination of dormant spores of Bacillus species is initiated when nutrient germinants bind to germinant receptors in spores' inner membrane and this interaction triggers the release of dipicolinic acid and cations from the spore core and their replacement by water. Bacillus subtilis spores contain three functional germinant receptors encoded by the gerA, gerB, and gerK operons. The GerA germi...

Bacillus cereus spores are assembled with a series of concentric layers that protect them from a wide range of environmental stresses. The outermost layer, or exosporium, is a bag-like structure that interacts with the environment and is composed of more than 20 proteins and glycoproteins. Here, we identified a new spore protein, ExsM, from a beta-mercaptoethanol extract of B. cereus ATCC 4342 ...

The thermal characteristics of the spores and vegetative cells of three strains of Bacillus coagulans (ATCC 8038, ATCC 7050, and 185A) in tomato juice were evaluated. B. coagulans ATCC 8038 was chosen as the target microorganism for thermal processing of tomato products due to its spores having the highest thermal resistance among the three strains. The thermal inactivation kinetics of B. coag...

Attachment of spores of Ulva fasciata to natural biofilms was examined to probe the basis for specificity in settlement. Within 30 min from initial exposure in laboratory assays, spores attached to 1-, 3-, 6- or 9-day biofilms formed on acid-cleaned glass slides. The greatest number of spores attached to biofilms aged for 6-day (573.3 +/- 45 spores mm2, p<0.025). The Morisita Index (MI) was use...

Spores of Streptomyces griseus contain trehalose and trehalase, but trehalose is not readily hydrolyzed until spore germination is initiated. Trehalase in crude extracts of spores, germinated spores, and mycelia of S. griseus had a pH optimum of approximately 6.2, had a Km value for trehalose of approximately 11 mM, and was most active in buffers having ionic strengths of 50 to 200 mM. Inhibito...

Oxidative stress-induced damage, including 8-oxo-guanine and apurinic/apyrimidinic (AP) DNA lesions, were detected in dormant and outgrowing Bacillus subtilis spores lacking the AP endonucleases Nfo and ExoA. Spores of the Δnfo exoA strain exhibited slightly slowed germination and greatly slowed outgrowth that drastically slowed the spores' return to vegetative growth. A null mutation in the di...