What is Bacillus subtilis morphology?
Bacillus Subtilis Morphology. Bacillus subtilis morphology describes rod-shaped, Gram-positive bacteria that show up on both positive and negative Gram stain techniques. A bacterial rod is a symmetrical cylinder with rounded ends. A significant difference in pressure across the cytoplasmic membrane pushes the cell wall into a specific shape.
Is Bacillus subtilis Gram positive or negative?
Bacillus subtilis is commonly found in the soil but can also be cultured in a microbiology laboratory. This bacterium belongs to a group of gram-positive bacteria since it has a thick peptidoglycan layer. Peptidoglycan is a molecule found on the cell wall of bacteria.
What is the size of B subtilis cells?
B. subtilis cells are typically rod-shaped, and are about 4-10 micrometers (μm) long and 0.25–1.0 μm in diameter, with a cell volume of about 4.6 fL at stationary phase. As with other members of the genus Bacillus, it can form an endospore, to survive extreme environmental conditions of temperature and desiccation.
What is the structure of peptidoglycan in Bacillus subtilis?
Peptidoglycan surrounds its cell, and it utilizes a flagellum for motility. Bacillus subtilis arrangement is quite diverse, and they may be arranged as single or chain cells.
What is the shape and arrangement of Bacillus subtilis?
What is the shape and arrangement of Bacillus subtilis? Bacillus subtilis gram stain test reveals them as rod-shaped bacteria cells under a microscope. They may be arranged as clumps, singly, or as chains.
Is Bacillus subtilis cell shape?
Bacillus subtilis is a rod-shaped organism about which much is known concerning structure and the function of the cell wall.
What is the form of Bacillus subtilis?
Bacillus subtilis is a Gram-positive, rod-shaped bacterium that forms heat-resistant spores. It is commonly found in the soil. It is nonpathogenic. It received its name in 1872 from Ferdinand Cohn, who also demonstrated its ability to form spores that were heat-resistant.
What are characteristics of Bacillus subtilis?
Bacillus subtilis is a motile, Gram-positive, rod-shaped bacteria that occurs as short chains, small clumps, or single cells. It is heterotrophic, which means it cannot make its own food and needs to consume from the environment.
What is the size of Bacillus subtilis?
B. subtilis is a fast-growing, Gram-positive, aerobic bacterium with rod-shaped cells that are typically 2–6 µm long and just less than 1 µm in diameter.
What is a spiral shaped bacteria?
Spirilla (sing. spirillum) shapes are curved-shaped bacteria which can range from a gently curved shape to a corkscrew spiral. Many spirilla are rigid and able to move.
Are bacilli rod shaped?
bacillus, (genus Bacillus), any of a genus of rod-shaped, gram-positive, aerobic or (under some conditions) anaerobic bacteria widely found in soil and water. The term bacillus has been applied in a general sense to all cylindrical or rodlike bacteria.
What does Bacillus subtilis look like under a microscope?
Bacillus Subtilis is also known as hay bacillus or grass bacillus. It is a gram-positive bacterium found in soil and the GI tract of ruminants and humans. Bacillus subtilis is rod-shaped and typically 4-10 microns long.
What is the morphology of Bacillus?
Morphology: Cell: Rod shaped cells. Spore: The species are endospore formers. Shape of the spores varies with the species and maybe oval, ellipsoidal, cylindrical or spherical.
What is rod-shaped bacteria called?
Bacteria are classified according to their shape, or morphology. Spherical bacteria are known as cocci, rod-shaped bacteria are bacilli, and spiral-shaped bacteria are spirilla.
How do you identify Bacillus?
Diagnosis is confirmed by observation of characteristic encapsulated bacilli in polychrome methylene blue-stained smears of blood, exudate, lymph, cerebrospinal fluid, etc., and/or by culture. Other Bacillus infections are diagnosed by culture of the bacteria.
Is Bacillus Gram-positive or negative?
Bacillus species are Gram-positive, endospore-forming, rod-shaped bacteria that are ubiquitous in the environment.
What shape is bacilli bacteria?
bacillus, (genus Bacillus), any of a genus of rod-shaped, gram-positive, aerobic or (under some conditions) anaerobic bacteria widely found in soil and water. The term bacillus has been applied in a general sense to all cylindrical or rodlike bacteria.
What is the shape of Bacillus cereus?
Summary: Bacillus cereus is a Gram-positive aerobic or facultatively anaerobic, motile, spore-forming, rod-shaped bacterium that is widely distributed environmentally.
What is the morphology of Bacillus?
Morphology: Cell: Rod shaped cells. Spore: The species are endospore formers. Shape of the spores varies with the species and maybe oval, ellipsoidal, cylindrical or spherical.
What are the three main shapes of bacteria?
Individual bacteria can assume one of three basic shapes: spherical (coccus), rodlike (bacillus), or curved (vibrio, spirillum, or spirochete). Considerable variation is seen in the actual shapes of bacteria, and cells can be stretched or compressed in one dimension.
What is the shape and arrangement of Bacillus subtilis?
Bacillus subtilis gram stain test reveals them as rod-shaped bacteria cells under a microscope. They may be arranged as clumps, singly, or as chains.
Is Bacillus subtilis harmful to humans?
Bacillus subtilis is considered non-pathogenic, and it is most useful in the production of antibiotics and its spores used as probiotics. However,...
What is the cell shape of Bacillus subtilis?
Bacillus subtilis cell has a rod-like shape. This shape is quite common with the members of Bacillus. Bacillus subtilis arrangement may appear as s...
Why did the Army dump Bacillus subtilis on subway grates?
It has been reported that in 1966 the U.S Army dumped bacillus subtilis onto the grates of New York City subway stations for four days in order to observe people's reactions when coated by a strange dust, due to its ability to survive it is thought to still be present there.
What is the chromosome size of Bacillus subtilis?
The de novo assembly resulted in an estimated chromosome size of 4,148,460 bp, with 4,288 open reading frames. B. subtilis strain WS1A genome contains many potential genes, such as those encoding proteins involved in the biosynthesis of riboflavin, vitamin B6, and amino acids ( ilvD) and in carbon utilization ( pta ).
How big is Bacillus subtilis?
B. subtilis cells are typically rod-shaped, and are about 4–10 micrometers ( μm) long and 0.25–1.0 μm in diameter, with a cell volume of about 4.6 fL at stationary phase.
How is Bacitracin extracted from the medium?
Over time, the bacteria synthesizes bacitracin and secretes the antibiotic into the medium. The bacitracin is then extracted from the medium using chemical processes. Since the 1960s B. subtilis has had a history as a test species in spaceflight experimentation.
How many genes are in B. subtilis?
B. subtilis has about 4,100 genes. Of these, only 192 were shown to be indispensable; another 79 were predicted to be essential, as well. A vast majority of essential genes were categorized in relatively few domains of cell metabolism, with about half involved in information processing, one-fifth involved in the synthesis of cell envelope and the determination of cell shape and division, and one-tenth related to cell energetics.
When was Bacitracin first used?
The antibiotic bacitracin was first isolated from the licheniformis group of Bacillus subtilis var Tracy in 1945 and bacitracin is still commercially manufactured by growing the bacteria Bacillus subtilis var Tracy I in a container of liquid growth medium.
What is the purpose of B. subtilis?
B. subtilis is a model organism used to study bacterial chromosome replication. Replication of the single circular chromosome initiates at a single locus, the origin ( oriC ). Replication proceeds bidirectionally and two replication forks progress in clockwise and counterclockwise directions along the chromosome.
What is the purpose of Bacillus subtilis biofilms?
Once in the gut, these spores become active and colonize. As Bacillus subtilis biofilms in worm intestines seem to lengthen the worm’s lifespan, many human users hope for the same effect. Another use of B. subtilis is in wastewater treatment.
What is the morphology of Bacillus subtilis?
Bacillus subtilis morphology describes rod-shaped, Gram-positive bacteria that show up on both positive and negative Gram stain techniques. A bacterial rod is a symmetrical cylinder with rounded ends. A significant difference in pressure across the cytoplasmic membrane pushes the cell wall into a specific shape.
Why is B. subtilis dormant?
This is because when under stress, these bacteria (including B. subtilis ) transform into spores and become dormant . A colony of Bacillus subtilis survived on the outside of a NASA satellite for six years. The colony morphology of B. subtilis refers to how it appears in large quantities.
What is the circular chromosome in B. subtilis?
B. subtilis contains only one double-stranded DNA molecule contained within a circular chromosome. A circular chromosome is typical of bacteria, mitochondria, and plant chloroplasts. Recently discovered filament-forming proteins run along the longer axis of rod-shaped cells and push original and replicated DNA to each end during cell division. The rod shape also helps bacteria glide or move through watery environments and provides regular building block shapes that make biofilm formation easier.
What is a bacillus?
Definition. Bacillus subtilis, hay bacillus, or grass bacillus was one of the first Gram-positive bacteria to be studied. It is an aerobic, rod-shaped spore-forming microorganism that can spread in extreme cold, heat, and even disinfected environments. It transfers to the gastrointestinal tracts of animals and humans via the soil.
What is an arrangement in microbiology?
An arrangement is a microbiological term that refers to species-specific bacteria communities. An arrangement might be two (diplo) bacteria, chains (strepto), or palisades (side-to-side clusters), for example. B. subtilis is most commonly singular in arrangement. Bacilli arrangements.
Which bacteria reduces plastic by 1.75%?
Without the support of synthetic chemicals, B. subtilis is not the fastest strain – it reduces dry-weight plastic by around 1.75% over a term of 30 days. However, when paired with another bacteria called Pseudomonas aeruginosa both types of bacteria perform more efficiently.
What Is Bacillus Subtilis?
Bacillus subtilis, a bacterium that belongs to the genus Bacillus, is like that good guy.
How to differentiate bacteria?
Bacteria can be differentiated by the thickness of the peptidoglycan layer using a specialized stain called a Gram stain. Using the Gram stain procedure, the cells of B. subtilis would appear purple because they have a thick layer of peptidoglycan in their cell wall. Cells with a thick peptidoglycan layer are called Gram-positive.
How does B. subtilis get its energy?
subtilis is a heterotrophic organism, which means it can't make its own food so it has to eat or consume something just like we do. B. subtilis absorbs its nutrients from the environment: those nutrients have to be converted into energy in some way. While humans and some other types of bacteria require oxygen to convert nutrients into energy, B. subtilis can make do without. Organisms that do not need oxygen to make energy are called facultative anaerobes.
Why is B. subtilis so geeky?
subtilis also produces compounds that can be used in bioremediation (like cleaning up oil spills), but even this is not what makes the bacterium geeky. Because prokaryotic cells are simple, it's easier to study complex processes in them.
What is the name of the cell with little tails?
B. subtilis has peritrichous flagella, meaning the cell is covered in little tails. These flagella tails are observable with a light microscope using a specialized stain. B subtilis forms endospores, which are tough, dormant structures produced by some bacteria in a process called sporulation.
Why is B. subtilis important?
B. subtilis is not only useful, but pretty cool to science geeks. B. subtilis is a great source for antibiotics. If you have bacitracin in your medicine cabinet to treat minor cuts, you have an antibiotic that is produced by this organism.
What is the cell wall of B. subtilis?
Like all members of the genus Bacillus, B. subtilis is a rod-shaped bacterium that typically forms small clumps, short chains, or single cells. It has a cell wall that is made of a complex molecule called peptidoglycan, which is made of long chains of glucose linked together by amino acids.
What organisms are used for genetic transformation?
Bacillus subtilis has been one of the principal organisms used for the investigation of genetic transformation. A great deal is known, therefore, about this process (for a review see Dubnau, 1982). Because the transformation of competent cells by plasmid DNA continues to be the most widely used means of introducing recombinant DNA, we shall discuss this process in some detail later. However, Chang and Cohen (1979) have described a highly efficient (~10 7 transformants/μgm plasmid DNA) protoplast-transformation system that does not require the use of competent cells. This method is certainly useful for some purposes. Unlike competent cells (see later), protoplasts are transformable by plasmid monomers, and by nicked, gapped, and linear plasmid molecules (Chang and Cohen, 1979; Gryczan et al., 1980a; Scherzinger et al., 1980). However, protoplast transformation is limited in its usefulness by the following properties:
How does Bacillus subtilis form biofilm?
The soil-dwelling organism Bacillus subtilis is able to form multicellular aggregates known as biofilms. It was recently reported that the process of biofilm formation is activated in response to the presence of various, structurally diverse small-molecule natural products. All of these small-molecule natural products made pores in the membrane of the bacterium, causing the leakage of potassium cations from the cytoplasm of the cell. The potassium cation leakage was sensed by the membrane histidine kinase KinC, triggering the genetic pathway to the production of the extracellular matrix that holds cells within the biofilm. This chapter presents the methodology used to characterize the leakage of cytoplasmic potassium as the signal that induces biofilm formation in B. subtilis via activation of KinC. Development of novel techniques to monitor activation of gene expression in microbial populations led us to discover the differentiation of a subpopulation of cells specialized to produce the matrix that holds all cells together within the biofilm. This phenomenon of cell differentiation was previously missed by conventional techniques used to monitor transcriptional gene expression.
What is the best bacteria to use as a model organism for Gram positive bacteria?
Bacillus subtilis is one of the best characterized bacteria and is used as a model organism for Gram-positive bacteria. B. subtilis is a rod-shaped bacterium, which produces endospores that allow the survival of extreme environmental conditions including heat and desiccation. In the soil, the natural environment of B. subtilis, the bacterium continuously encounters various changing environmental conditions including drastic differences in oxygen tension. For example, a rain shower reduces the accessibility of oxygen, as the diffusion rate of oxygen in water is approximately 10,000 times lower than in the gaseous phase. As oxygen is the essential electron acceptor during aerobic respiration, B. subtilis has adopted various alternative strategies for anaerobic growth.
What is the bacterium that forms spores?
Bacillus subtilis is a rod-shaped, Gram-positive bacterium that forms spores. Efficient systems of genetic analysis have helped B. subtilis to become a paradigm for the study of spore formation and of low GC Gram-positive bacteria. B. subtilis can grow in minimal media containing only essential salts and carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus sources. It uses a range of regulatory mechanisms to control the expression of genes for both biosynthetic and degradative pathways. Growth and division require the synthesis and remodeling of the thick wall that surrounds the bacterial cell.
What is the growth media of B. subtilis?
B. subtilis is able to grow both in nutrient media and in chemically defined salt media in which glucose, malate and other simple sugars provide sources of carbon and ammonium salts or certain amino acids as sources of nitrogen (Harwood & Archibald, 1990 ). B. subtilis strain 168, on which most studies are performed, is a tryptophan auxotroph (trpC2) and therefore requires the addition of tryptophan to the growth media, even those containing acid-hydrolysed proteins such as casein. An analysis of the origins of B. subtilis 168 indicates that it was a derived from B. subtilis Marburg (ATCC 6051 T ), the type strain of both B. subtilis and B. subtilis subsp. subtilis ( Zeigler et al., 2008 ). More recently, a prototrophic variant of strain 168, called BSB1, has been isolated by transformation with DNA from strain W23 ( Nicolas et al., 2012 ). BSB1 is increasingly replacing strain 168 in more systematic research programmes.
Where is Bacillus subtilis found?
Bacillus subtilis, a low %G+C, Gram-positive, endospore-forming member of the bacterial phylum Firmicutes, is found predominately in the soil and in association with plants. B. subtilis is the type species for the genus Bacillus, and, following the discovery ( Spizizen, 1958) that strain 168 exhibited natural genetic competence, this bacterium has been developed as a high tractable model for Gram-positive bacteria and for the study of basic metabolic and cellular differentiation processes such as sporulation, genetic competence and biofilm formation. The accumulation, over more than half a century, of knowledge of the biochemistry, genetics and physiology of B. subtilis has been enhanced in recent years by a number of systematic ‘omics’ analyses. As a result, B. subtilis is one of the most intensively studied and genetically amenable microorganisms and a suitable chassis for a wide range of synthetic biology applications.
Which group is Bacillus subtilis in?
Bacillus subtilis is part of group 1 and is strongly linked to B. licheniformis (which is often found on the cuticle of insects), and to the group of animal pathogens formed by B. thuringiensis, B. cereus, and B. anthracis.
Overview
Genome
Bacillus subtilis has about 4,100 genes. Of these, only 192 were shown to be indispensable; another 79 were predicted to be essential, as well. A vast majority of essential genes were categorized in relatively few domains of cell metabolism, with about half involved in information processing, one-fifth involved in the synthesis of cell envelope and the determination of cell shape and division, and one-tenth related to cell energetics.
Description
Bacillus subtilis is a Gram-positive bacterium, rod-shaped and catalase-positive. It was originally named Vibrio subtilis by Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg, and renamed Bacillus subtilis by Ferdinand Cohn in 1872 (subtilis being the Latin for "fine, thin, slender"). B. subtilis cells are typically rod-shaped, and are about 4–10 micrometers (μm) long and 0.25–1.0 μm in diameter, with a cell volume of about 4.6 fL at stationary phase.
Habitat
This species is commonly found in the upper layers of the soil and B. subtilis is thought to be a normal gut commensal in humans. A 2009 study compared the density of spores found in soil (about 10 spores per gram) to that found in human feces (about 10 spores per gram). The number of spores found in the human gut was too high to be attributed solely to consumption through food contamination. In some bee habitats, B. subtilis appears in the gut flora of honey bees. B. s…
Reproduction
Bacillus subtilis can divide symmetrically to make two daughter cells (binary fission), or asymmetrically, producing a single endospore that can remain viable for decades and is resistant to unfavourable environmental conditions such as drought, salinity, extreme pH, radiation, and solvents. The endospore is formed at times of nutritional stress and through the use of hydrolysis, allowing the orga…
Chromosomal replication
Bacillus subtilis is a model organism used to study bacterial chromosome replication. Replication of the single circular chromosome initiates at a single locus, the origin (oriC). Replication proceeds bidirectionally and two replication forks progress in clockwise and counterclockwise directions along the chromosome. Chromosome replication is completed when the forks reach the terminus region, which is positioned opposite to the origin on the chromosome map. The terminus region …
Transformation
Natural bacterial transformation involves the transfer of DNA from one bacterium to another through the surrounding medium. In B. subtilis the length of transferred DNA is greater than 1271kb (more than 1 million bases). The transferred DNA is likely double-stranded DNA and is often more than a third of the total chromosome length of 4215 kb. It appears that about 7–9% of the recipient cells take up an entire chromosome.
Uses
Cultures of B. subtilis were popular worldwide, before the introduction of antibiotics, as an immunostimulatory agent to aid treatment of gastrointestinal and urinary tract diseases. It was used throughout the 1950s as an alternative medicine, which upon digestion has been found to significantly stimulate broad-spectrum immune activity including activation of secretion of specific antibodies