The response of sporogenesis in Bacillus subtilis to acriflavine

Abstract

Acriflavine treatment of early log phase cells of B. subtilis produced stable oligosporogenic and asporogenic mutants in high yield. High numbers of oligosporogenic mutants, believed to be defective for a regulatory gene, were found consistently after acriflavine addition. The asporogenic mutants were found on only a few occasions at approximately 19 hr. after the addition of acriflavine. Results did not imply that acriflavine selected either type of mutant. Exposure of late log and stationary phase cells to acriflavine was not effective in producing speculation mutants. If these cells grown to the late growth phase are irradiated with specific doses of UV light and then treated with acriflavine, high numbers of oligosporogenic mutants appeared. The acriflavine-induced Sp" mutants were not auxotrophic for amino-acids or resistant to acriflavine. They had no detectable respiratory deficiencies and produced the protease and bacteriocin associated with the early stages of sporogenesis.