THE STRUCTURE OF SPORES AS REVEALED BY MECHANICAL DISRUPTION

Abstract

Resting spores of Bacillus cereus and B. megaterium, suspended in fixatives, were exposed to vibration with small glass beads in a Mickle tissue disintegrator. The ruptured spores, unlike whole spores, are no longer retractile, do not react with violent rearrangement of structure to acid hydrolysis and their basophilia are partially digestible by ribonuclease. Both spp. of spore contain chromatinic material as a band or ring (often beaded) lying in the outer aspect of the main basophilic body of the spore. In B. megaterium a thick hyaline cortex separates this element from the spore coat.