Effect of Water Washing Purification on the Surface Morphology of Bacillus cereus Spores

摘要: The architecture of spore surfaces plays an important role in the pathogenesis and natural ecology many Bacillus organisms. However, changes to laboratory preparation method for spores may be a source phenotypic variability cell that can affect our understanding situ morphology make cross-study comparisons more difficult.  In this work, we examined how variation number water washing steps during purification influenced three-dimensional cereus surfaces. Two strains B. , str. 14579 T-strain, were cultured liquid medium purified using 0, 1, 3, or 5 steps. Results showed nanoscale surface is affected by washes such early wash step samples had higher levels roughness, quantified with Root Mean Square (RMS) algorithm, which decreased successive washes. presence large (>200 nm) surficial features, representing fragments and/or debris from culture, was also inversely correlated cellular unwashed changed nanomechanical signatures outermost but did not properties underlying cell. This suggests mechanics should considered when analyzing micro- nano-scale spores. Journal Nature Science, 1(6):e116, 2015