Chemical composition of bacillus spores

✍ Scribed by Pendukar, S. H. ;Kulkarni, P. R.

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1988
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 132 KB
• Volume: 32
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0027-769X
• DOI: 10.1002/food.19880321025

✦ Synopsis

The basis of heat resistance of bacterial spores has remained an intruding problem. The large increase in the heat resistance from the vegetative to the spore state has been attributed to some extent to the differences in the chemical composition of the vegetative cell and spore [7]. However. not much data are available on the levels of important chemical constituents of spores of different species of Bacillus. The present work was therefore undertaken to study 5 of the Bacilli commonly encountered in food spoilage and food poisoning in this respect.

Methods

Laboratory strains of Bacillus subtilis, Bacillus cereus, Bacillus coagulans, Bacillus pwnilus, and Bacillus licheniformis were procured from National Chemical Laboratory, Pune, India. For sporulation of cultures, 5 ml of the cell suspension of each of the Bacillus species containing 10' cells/ml were inoculated in 100 ml sporulation medium and incubated at 28-30 "C on a rotary shaker for 4-5 days. At the end of the incubation period, they were subjected to cold-distilled water wash treatment [S], resuspended in cold sterile distilled water and stored at 0 "C until use. B. cereus, B. pumilus, and B. coagulans were allowed to sporulate in Medium G [ 121. B. suhtilis in EDWARD et al. medium [I] and B. licheniforinis in 1 7, TYG broth [3]. Dipicolinic acid (DPA) contents of the spores was determined by the method of JANSFN et al [4]. Spores were prepared for calcium estimation according to the method of SLEPCKY et al. [ 121 and calcium determined