THE ECOLOGY OF ANTHRAX SPORES - TOUGH BUT NOT INVINCIBLE

Bacillus anthracis is the causative agent of anthrax, a serious and of ten fatal disease of wild and domestic animals, Central to the persist ence of anthrax in an area is the ability of B. anthracis to form long lasting, highly resistant spores, Understanding the ecology of anthrax shores is essential if one hopes to control epidemics, Studies on the ecology of anthrax have found a correlation between the disease and s pecific soil factors, such as alkaline pH, high moisture, and high org anic content, Researchers initially suggested that these factors influ enced vegetative anthrax bacilli, However, subsequent research has sho wn that vegetative cells of B. anthracis have very specific nutrient a nd physiological requirements and are unlikely to survive outside a ho st, Review of the properties of spores of B. anthracis and other Bacil lus species suggests that the specific soil factors linked to epidemic areas reflect important environmental conditions that aid the anthrax spores in causing epidemics, Specifically, high levels of calcium in the soil may help to maintain spore vitality for prolonged periods, th ereby increasing the chance of spores encountering and infecting a new host, Cycles of runoff and evaporation may collect spores dispersed f rom previous epidemics into storage areas, thereby concentrating them, Uptake of large doses of viable spores from storage areas by suscepti ble animals, via altered feeding or breeding behavior, may then allow the bacterium to establish infection and cause a new epidemic, Literat ure search for this review was done by scanning the Life Sciences Coll ection 1982-1994 using the keywords ''anthrax'' and ''calcium and spor e.''