Germination of Bacillus anthracis spores:research advances / 军事医学

ABSTRACT

A spore is another life cycle form of Bacillus anthracis for resisting starvation.When conditions are favorable for growth, the dormant spore will germinate,go through outgrowth, and are ultimately converted back into a growing cell. As the first step back to vegetative growth, germination could be induced by nutrients and a variety of non-nutrient agents. Nutrient germinants trigger cation release and water absorption by binding to receptors in the spore′s inner membrane.Then the spore′s peptidoglycan cortex is hydrolyzed and the spore core rehydrates, which allows the resumption of spore metabo-lism and macromolecular synthesis.This paper reviews the nutrient germinant receptor and cortex lytic enzymes in the spore germination process of B.anthracis.