Germinability of coat-lacking spores of Bacillus megaterium.

Upon treatment with acid, the germinability of both intact and coat-lacking spores of Bacillus megaterium ATCC 19213 exhibited similar features. Namely, when the spores previously germinated by alanine in the presence of phosphate buffer were converted to H-spores by treatment with nitric acid, germination proceeded at a very low speed in a same germination medium. When H-spores converted to Ca-spores by treatment with calcium acetate and subsequently germinated, germination proceeded at a speed higher than that of native spores and occurred even in the absence of buffer. These results suggest that the site of exchangeable cations concerned with germinability must not exist in the coat.