The Bacillus cereus group, which includes entomopathogens and etiologic agents of foodborne illness or anthrax, persists in various environments. The basis of their ecological diversification remains largely undescribed. Here we present the genetic structure and phylogeny of 273 soil B. cereus s.l. isolates from diverse habitats in northeastern Poland, with samplings acquired from the last Euro...

A total of 320 samples of vegetarian food purchased from local markets were examined in order to determine themicrobiological quality of these products. Aerobic count, psychrotrophic count, anaerobic count, E. Coli, coliforms, S. aureus, B. cereus, spores of Bacillus as well as enterotoxins produced byB. cereus and S. aureuswere also evaluated.The incidence of E. coli and coliforms in thesevege...

In this study, the effect of infrared (IR) on decontamination of Bacillus cereus in cardamom seeds were determined at difference IR radiation powers (100, 200, and 300 W), different sample distances from radiation source (5, 10 and 15 cm) and various holding times. The most successful reduction in B. cereus numbers (5.11 log CFU/g) was achieved after a holding time of 8 min at...

The Bacillus cereus group comprises nine species, several of which are pathogenic. Differentiating between isolates that may cause disease and those that do not is a matter of public health and economic importance, but can be particularly challenging due to the high genomic similarity of the group. To this end, we have developed BTyper, a computational tool that employs a combination of (i) vir...

OBJECTIVES To investigate the potential use of DNA techniques in epidemiological diagnosis of Bacillus cereus food poisoning. SUBJECTS Fifty six B. cereus isolates from milk were studied. DESIGN The 56 B. cereus isolates were characterised into enterotoxin positive (27 isolates) and enterotoxin negative (29 isolates) using reverse passive latex agglutination technique. SETTING Plasmid and...

Bacillus cereus is a Gram-positive aerobic or facultatively anaerobic, motile, spore-forming, rod-shaped bacterium that is widely distributed environmentally. While B. cereus is associated mainly with food poisoning, it is being increasingly reported to be a cause of serious and potentially fatal non-gastrointestinal-tract infections. The pathogenicity of B. cereus, whether intestinal or nonint...

Bacillus thuringiensis, Bacillus cereus, and Bacillus anthracis are closely related species belonging to the Bacillus cereus group. B. thuringiensis and B. cereus generally produce extracellular proteins, including phospholipases and hemolysins. Transcription of the genes encoding these factors is controlled by the pleiotropic regulator PlcR. Disruption of plcR in B. cereus and B. thuringiensis...

A pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) method was developed for discriminating Bacillus anthracis from B. cereus and B. thuringiensis. A worldwide collection of 25 B. anthracis isolates showed high-profile homology, and these isolates were unambiguously distinguished from B. cereus and B. thuringiensis isolates by cluster analysis of the whole-genome macrorestriction enzyme digestion pattern...

Hemolysin BL (HBL) is the multi-component enterotoxin causing diarrheal type of Bacillus cereus food poisoning. The hbl operon of B. cereus was divided into 4 coding sequences (CDS) and identified as hblC, hblD, hblA and hblB genes consisting of 1,319, 1,221, 1,128 and 1,401 nucleotides encoding proteins of 439, 406, 375 and 466 amino acids with predicted sizes of 49.3, 43.8, 41.7 and 52.3 kDa,...

Forty-seven strains representing 14 different Bacillus species isolated from clinical and food samples were grown in reconstituted infant milk formulae (IMF) and subsequently assessed for adherence to, invasion of, and cytotoxicity toward HEp-2 and Caco-2 cells. Cell-free supernatant fluids from 38 strains (81%) were shown to be cytotoxic, 43 strains (91%) adhered to the test cell lines, and 23...