Inhalational anthrax is initiated by the entry of Bacillus anthracis spores into the lung. A critical early event in the establishment of an infection is the dissemination of spores from the lung. Using in vitro cell culture assays, we previously demonstrated that B. anthracis spores are capable of entering into epithelial cells of the lung and crossing a barrier of lung epithelial cells withou...

Spores of Bacillus subtilis possess a thick protein coat that consists of an electron-dense outer coat layer and a lamellalike inner coat layer. The spore coat has been shown to confer resistance to lysozyme and other sporicidal substances. In this study, spore coat-defective mutants of B. subtilis (containing the gerE36 and/or cotE::cat mutation) were used to study the relative contributions o...

The electrophoretic behaviour of freshly harvested spores of Aspergillus niger, Phanerochaete chrysosporium and Geotrichum candidum was determined in solution at various pH values. Freshly harvested spores of all three species lacked positive mobility at low pH values, suggesting a preponderance of acidic surface groups. Spores of the ‘non-aggregating’ fungus, G. candidum, had a pH-mobility cur...

Spores of Bacillus subtilis spoVF strains that cannot synthesize dipicolinic acid (DPA) but take it up during sporulation were prepared in medium with various DPA concentrations, and the germination and viability of these spores as well as the DPA content in individual spores were measured. Levels of some other small molecules in DPA-less spores were also measured. These studies have allowed th...

Concludes that conditions during sporulation play significant role in Bacillus anthracis sporulation. Various factors namely temperature, pH and nutrient deprivation were found to bring about changes in sporulation efficiencies of B. anthracis cultures. B. anthracis spores formed under various stress conditions have varied suceptibility towards physical and chemical denaturants used for spore i...

Resting spores of Bacillus megaterium appear uniformly opaque and undifferentiated under the electron microscope. Germinated spores and spores which have lost their dipicolinic acid underwent characteristic changes in structure. Spores fixed with KMnO(4) lose their dipicolinic acid. Spores fixed with OsO(4) under certain conditions retain their dipicolinic acid. When conventional sectioning pro...

In this research, five species of the genus Polystichum, belonging to Dryopteridaceae, namely, P. lonchitis, P. woronowii, P. setiferum, P. braunii and P. aculeatum, were collected from Gilan and Mazandaran Provinces and studied micro-morphologically. In order to compare the spores, their morphology and their ornamentation was studied. The spores each were picked from sporangia and each sample ...

We give an analysis of the stability and uniqueness of the simply laminated microstructure for all three tetragonal to monoclinic martensitic transformations. The energy density for tetragonal to monoclinic transformations has four rotationally invariant wells since the transformation has four variants. One of these tetragonal to monoclinic martensitic transformations corresponds to the shearin...

Germination of Bacillus spores with a high pressure (HP) of ∼150 MPa is via activation of spores' germinant receptors (GRs). The HP germination of multiple individual Bacillus subtilis spores in a diamond anvil cell (DAC) was monitored with phase-contrast microscopy. Major conclusions were that (i) >95% of wild-type spores germinated in 40 min in a DAC at ∼150 MPa and 37°C but individual spores...