Article Abstract:
A new biological indicator (BI), the Attest Rapid Readout indicator developed by the 3M Company, was compared against three other conventional BIs for rapidity in monitoring sterilization of medical instruments. With sterilization failure based on Bacillus stearothermophilus spores being the accepted mechanism for monitoring steam sterilization processes, this new BI made use of the presence of the spore- bound enzyme alpha-D-glucosidase in detecting sterilization failure. This enabled the new BI to yield results within sixty minutes as compared with the conventional BIs that took twentyfour hours to detect the presence of the bacterial spores. The length of time consumed by the conventional BIs was due to the time required before spore growth could be observed.
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Article Abstract:
The relationship between the nucleic acid content and growth rate of a marine bacterium, Pseudomonas stutzeri Zobell, was examined. A relationship between the RNA/DNA ratio and growth rate was observed, using both ethidium bromide (EtBr) fluorescence and DNA hybridization methods for quantification of nucleic acids. The RNA/DNA ratio exhibited a decrease with decreasing growth rate, and the relationship was linear with the EtBr method. The hybridization assay has potential for specificity and sensitivity.
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Article Abstract:
Research was conducted to examine airborne actinomycete spores with fluorogenic substrates. Fluorescence analysis was used to investigate the reactions between seven fluorogenic substrates and different groups of enzymes, lipases, phosphatases, esterases and dehydrogenases. Results suggest that artificial fluorogenic substrates can be effectively used to measure the enzymatic activities of actinomycete spores.
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