Anthrax vegetative

Tissue macrophages engulf anthrax spores o by phagocytosis. While many spores will die in the lysosome, others will escape detection inside aixl germinate into vegetative bacilli. 

In cutaneous and gastrointestinal anthrax, spore germination takes place at or near the inoculation site following uptake by the macrophage or dendritic cell. It is the vegetative form, not the spore, which produces the deadly factors. After transformation to the vegetative bacilli, these bacteria are free to mediate toxicity at the inoculation site in skin and gastrointestinal tract (Beatty et al., 2003). In inhalational... 

FIGURE 4.8 (See color insert following page 46.) Amount of ricin sorbed by various fruits and vegetables before and after rinsing. (Zartman, R.E., Green, C.J., San Francisco, M.J., Zak, J.C., and Jaynes, W.F., 2003, Food sorption of ricin and anthrax simulants. Joint Services Scientific Conference on Chemical and Biological Defense Research, Towson, MD, November.)... 

In addition to the anthrax carbohydrate present on the surface of spores described above, the structure of the secondary cell wall polysaccharide of B. anthracis vegetative cells consists of hexasaccharide repeating units having unusual (3-linked N-acetylmannosamine 45. The two corresponding synthetic trisaccharides were recognized by the sera from rabbits exposed to spores of B. anthracis.The first total synthesis of the hexasaccharide repeating unit was accomplished recently. ... 

The authorities at CAMR Porton Down were approached for an opinion, and they confirmed that ethylene oxide was lethal to anthrax spores, though only sublethal to the vegetative forms of the anthrax bacillus. The efficacy of the treatment was tested by using a non-pathogenic spore tracer which gave comparable results to anthrax spores. In the initial tests not all the spores were killed but when the quantity of ethylene oxide used for fumigation was increased the test results became satisfactory. As this work was under... 

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