Bacillus amylobacter

The first report in the literature of the isolation of a substance recognizable as a cyclodextrin was that of Villiers which appeared in 1891. From digests of Bacillus amylobacter on potato starch, Villiers obtained a small amount (3 g per 1000 g of starch) of a crystalline material, which he named cellulosine because of its resemblance in some respects to cellulose. The foundations of cyclodextrin chemistry were laid down, however, in the period 1903-1911 by Schardinger, and, in fact, some of the older literature frequently refers to the cyclodextrins as Schardinger dextrins. 

CDs (Figure 10-1) were discovered by the French scientist Villiers, who obtained this material from the potato starch digest of Bacillus amylobacter and named it cellulosine because of its similarity in some respects to cellulose [3]. 

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