Thermophile Endospores have Responsive Exosporium for Attachment

Extract

Recently studies examining the colonization of Clostridial pathogens on agar and human tissue culture cells, demonstrated that (C. sporogenes ATCC 3584, C. difficile ATCC 43594 [patient isolate], C. difficile ATCC 9689 [non-clinical], C. clostridioforme [patient isolate]) bacterial spores (endospores) of the genus Clostridia have an outer membrane that becomes responsive at activation and exhibits extensions of the exosporial membrane that facilitate and maintain spore attachment to a nutritive substrate during germination and initial outgrowth of the newly developed bacterial cell. Therefore this attachment phenomenon plays an important role in insuring bacterial colonization of a surface and the initial stages of the infective process. To see if other non-clinical members of this genus also have this ability to attach to a substrate or food-source during spore germination, and how this attachment process in environmental thermophiles compares to the clinical paradigm (in relation to time sequence, exosporial membrane structure, type of attachment structures, composition of the membrane etc.), sediment samples were collected in sterile transport containers at 4 geothermal sites at Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming.