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. 1981 Jan;145(1):613–619. doi: 10.1128/jb.145.1.613-619.1981

Isolation and properties of pili from spores of Bacillus cereus.

J P DesRosier, J C Lara
PMCID: PMC217311  PMID: 6109707

Abstract

Structures whose morphology is identical to that of bacterial pili have been isolated from spores of Bacillus cereus. The structures are absent from log-phase and sporulating cells. The pili are 6.8 nm in diameter, are of variable length, and appear to emanate randomly from the exosporium. Examination of spores from 12 Bacillus species showed that only those from B. cereus and B. thuringiensis have pili. Although isolated spore pili were shown to be composed of protein, their subunit nature was not discernible due to the extreme insolubility of the structure. An antiserum to spore pili was labeled with ferritin and used to examine the distribution of pilus antigen on the outer spore surface.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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