Terrance J. Leighton

TL;DR: It is found that individual dormant spores of Bacillus thuringiensis grow and shrink in response to increasing and decreasing relative humidity, and shrink to near their original size on reexposure to dry air.

TL;DR: Atomic force microscopy is used to probe the high-resolution structural dynamics of single Bacillus atrophaeus spores germinating under native conditions and shows that AFM can reveal previously unrecognized germination-induced alterations in spore coat architecture and topology as well as the disassembly of outer spore Coat rodlet structures.

TL;DR: In this paper, high-resolution native structures of bacterial endospores, including the exosporium and spore coats of four Bacillus species in air and water environments, were directly visualized using in vitro atomic force microscopy.

TL;DR: This work uses depth profile analysis to access the 3D compositional information of an intact spore without the additional sample preparation steps typically used to access substructural information in biological samples.

TL;DR: The results demonstrate that variations in storage and preparation procedures result in architectural changes in individual spore surfaces, which establish AFM as a useful tool for evaluation of preparation and processing "fingerprints" of bacterial spores.