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Spores will survive boiling, that's why autoclaves (pressure cookers) are used in medical research https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoclave https://en.wikipedia.
by pazimzadeh 4y ago
Spores will survive boiling, that's why autoclaves (pressure cookers) are used in medical research https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoclave https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoclave.
But spores are in a state of dormancy, so if you never stop boiling the broth, then spores never grow into anything. The most dangerous thing would probably be to boil the broth in stops in starts
- mgc_mgc 4y agoDepending on the circumstances, boiling in stops and starts may not be too bad: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyndallization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyndallization
- pazimzadeh 4y agoThat is amazing! So basically you trick the bacteria into exiting their spore/dormant phase before you hit them again with another boil. It seems risky because if you ever let the spores divide at all then you introduce further variation and a selection process into the mix, which could be disastrous. But that reminds me of the "shock and kill" strategy used to get HIV out of its latent state before killing the virions: https://clinicalinfo.hiv.gov/en/glossary/shock-and-kill-strategy https://clinicalinfo.hiv.gov/en/glossary/shock-and-kill-stra... And I guess this effect is also why chemotherapy drugs work best on fast-growing tumors.
- sowbug 4y agoI've heard from a friend of a friend that mycologists soak their grow mediums for a day or two to give spores a chance to germinate before pressure-cooking the whole thing. But said friend never called it Tyndallization. That's the thing I learned today!