Studies were undertaken to determine the effect of chemical inhibitors on the sporulation of thermophilic anaerobes of which Clostridium thermosaccharolyticum is a representative organism. Since fluoroacetic acid (R. S. Hanson, Ph.D. Thesis, Univ. of Illinois, Urbana, 1962), diethyl malonate (6), and a-picolinic acid (pyridine-6-carboxylic acid; reference 3) have been found to inhibit the sporu...