Figure 4.

Lgt deficiency attenuates germination. (A) Germination of wild-type strain, lgt mutant, and in situ complemented mutant as monitored by the decrease in A₆₀₀ of spore suspensions during incubation in BHI medium. Results are mean values of three independent experiments. Standard deviations are < 10% of the mean. The A₆₀₀ curve of lgt mutant spores differed with statistical significance from the curves of the wild-type and in situ complemented strain spores. (B) Spores of wild-type strain, lgt mutant, and complemented mutant were incubated at in (A) at 37°C for 30 min. At 30 min, samples were heat-treated at 65°C for 30 min. Before and after heat treatment, samples were plated on BHI agar. Plates were incubated overnight and colonies were counted. The fraction of total CFU that were heat sensitive (i.e., germinated) was calculated and are plotted as the mean values ± standard deviation of three independent experiments. Significant differences using one-way ANOVA with Tukey’s post-test (p < 0.001) are indicated by three asterisks (***).