The relative virulence was determined for 14 species of aspergilli, by inoculating normal mice intravenously with graded doses of spores. Eleven were found to possess some degree of virulence, whereas three others were avirulent. Members of the Aspergillus flavus group were the only species that consistently killed mice with doses as low as 10(4) viable spores. When the in vivo fate of spores w...

The thermal inactivation characteristics of Bacillus stearothermophilus (1518) spores and putrefactive anaerobe (PA) 3679 (NCA) spores suspended in skim milk were determined after treatment in pilot-plant ultrahigh-temperature (UHT) processing equipment. Temperature-survivor curves were constructed from survival data to emphasize the critical nature of temperature control in process evaluation....

Ex situ conservation of ferns may be accomplished by maintaining the viability of stored spores for many years. Storage conditions that maximize spore longevity can be inferred from an understanding of the behaviour of water within fern spores. Water sorption properties were measured in spores of five homosporeous species of ferns and compared with properties of pollen, seeds, and fern leaf tis...

Some microorganisms have been shown to retain a chemical signature indicative of the medium used for culturing. However, the repeatability of medium-specific chemical signatures has not been demonstrated from samples of microorganisms produced in the same batch or in different batches by the same sporulation protocol. Here, the variation in Raman spectra of bacterial endospores repeatedly prepa...

Polyadenylated RNA isolated by oligodeoxythymidylate-cellulose chromatography from spores of the fungus Botryodiplodia theobromae was translated in a cell-free protein-synthesizing system derived from wheat embryo. Reaction conditions which would yield efficient and accurate in vitro translation of the spore RNA were established. Dual isotopically labeled mixtures of in vitro translation produc...