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Cereulide-producing strains of Bacillus cereus show diversity

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Abstract

Producers of cereulide, the emetic toxin of Bacillus cereus, are known to constitute a specific subset within this species. We investigated physiological and genetic properties of 24 strains of B. cereus including two high cereulide producers (600–1,800 ng cereulide mg−1 wet weight biomass), seven average producers (180–600 ng cereulide mg−1 wet weight biomass), four low cereulide producers (20–160 ng cereulide mg−1 wet weight biomass) and 11 non-producers representing isolates from food, food poisoning, human gut and environment. The 13 cereulide producers possessed 16S rRNA gene sequences identical to each other and identical to that of B. anthracis strains Ames, Sterne from GenBank and strain NC 08234–02, but showed diversity in the adk gene (two sequence types), in ribopatterns obtained with EcoRI and PvuII (three types of patterns), in tyrosin decomposition, haemolysis and lecithin hydrolysis (two phenotypes). The cereulide-producing isolates from the human gut represented two ribopatterns of which one was novel to cereulide-producing B. cereus and two phenotypes. We conclude that the cereulide-producing B. cereus are genetically and biochemically more diverse than hitherto thought.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the Academy of Finland, grant to the Centre of Excellence “Microbial Resources” (grant 53305) and the European Commission, Quality of Life Programme, Key action 1 (Health, Food & Nutrition), contract QLK1-CT-2001-00854. We want to thank to Prof. Dr H-W. Ackermann and Dr Anja Siitonen for their valuable co-operation. We also thank Douwe Hoornstra for the help with the Bionumerics program and Ilona Oksanen for helpful discussions and advice. We thank Viikki Science Library for the excellent information service, the Faculty Instrument Centre for technical services, and Leena Steininger, Hannele Tukiainen and Tuula Suortti for many kinds of help.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Applied Chemistry and Microbiology, University of Helsinki, P.O. Box 56, Viikinkaari 9, 00014, Helsinki, Finland

    Camelia Apetroaie, Maria A. Andersson, Irina Tsitko, Ranad Shaheen, Elina L. Jääskeläinen & Mirja S. Salkinoja-Salonen

  2. DSMZ Deutsche Sammlung von Mikroorganismen und Zellkulturen GmbH, Mascheroder Weg 1b, 38124, Braunschweig, Germany

    Cathrin Spröer

  3. National Institute of Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), POB 1, 3720 B.A, Bilthoven, The Netherlands

    Luc M. Wijnands

  4. Yhtyneet Laboratoriot Oy, PL 222, 00381, Helsinki, Finland

    Ritva Heikkilä

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  1. Camelia Apetroaie
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Correspondence to Mirja S. Salkinoja-Salonen.

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Apetroaie, C., Andersson, M.A., Spröer, C. et al. Cereulide-producing strains of Bacillus cereus show diversity. Arch Microbiol 184, 141–151 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00203-005-0032-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00203-005-0032-1

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