Bacillus cereus
| Bacillus cereus | |
|---|---|
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| B. cereus colonies on a sheep-blood agar plate | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Domain: | Bacteria |
| Phylum: | Firmicutes |
| Class: | Bacilli |
| Order: | Bacillales |
| Family: | Bacillaceae |
| Genus: | Bacillus |
| Species: | B. cereus |
| Binomial name | |
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Bacillus cereus Frankland & Frankland 1887 |
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Bacillus cereus is a Gram-positive, rod-shaped, aerobic, motile, beta hemolytic bacterium commonly found in soil and food. Some strains are harmful to humans and cause foodborne illness, while other strains can be beneficial as probiotics for animals. It is the cause of "fried rice syndrome", as the bacteria are classically contracted from fried rice dishes that have been sitting at room temperature for hours.B. cereus bacteria are facultative anaerobes, and like other members of the genus Bacillus, can produce protective endospores. Its virulence factors include cereolysin and phospholipase C.
It was from this species that two new enzymes, named AlkC and AlkD, which are involved in DNA repair, were discovered in 2006.
Colonies of Bacillus cereus were originally isolated from an agar plate left exposed to the air in a cow shed. In the 2010s, examination of warning letters issued by the US Food and Drug Administration issued to pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities addressing facility microbial contamination revealed that the most common contaminant was B. cereus.
B. cereus competes with other microorganisms such as Salmonella and Campylobacter in the gut, so its presence reduces the numbers of those microorganisms. In food animals such as chickens,rabbits and pigs, some harmless strains of B. cereus are used as a probiotic feed additive to reduce Salmonella in the intestines and cecum. This improves the animals' growth as well as food safety for humans who eat their meat.
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Wikipedia