Diversity of bacterial spores from brazilian cerrado’s soil strains by transmission electron microscopy

Abstract

Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) studies in the 1960s started revealing a series of complex ultrastructural bacterial spore appendages that have, since then, been used as instruments for bypassing obstacles in finding answers about the appearance, distribution and possible function of spore structures. Our group’s multi-phase taxonomywork, aims to obtain a consistent classification of diverse aerobic endospore-forming bacteria isolated from the Brazil’s Cerrado (tropical Savanna) soil. In the present work, the spore’s morphology of nineteen selected strains was resolved by TEM with the usage of two different staining techniques, a simple yet effectivemethodology, in order to determine characteristic surface features that could be used to distinguish and help to identify, also provide better understanding about our soil strains.