Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-4rdrl Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-17T15:50:40.405Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Demonstration of chromatinic structures in avian tubercle bacilli in the early stages of development

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 May 2009

E. M. Brieger  and
C. F. Robinow
E. M. Brieger
Affiliation:
Papworth Village Settlement
C. F. Robinow
Affiliation:
Strangeways Research Laboratory, Cambridge
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

In a cytological investigation of three branching and two non-branching strains grown on Loewenstein medium, it was found that avian tubercle bacilli contain chromatinic material which gives a positive Feulgen reaction and is readily stainable with Giemsa's solution after treatment of the fixed bacteria with hydrochloric acid.

Growing filamentous forms of both ‘bacterial’ and ‘mycelial’ strains from 1 to 2 day old cultures contain variable numbers of irregularly spaced, more or less spherical chromatinic bodies which vary in staining in the same bacillus, some being red, others purple. During the third or fourth day the chromatinic material in the bacteria increases very much until most of it is fused into an almost homogeneous deeply stained column. In the non-branching strains the filamentous forms with high chromatin content soon break up into small mono-or binucleate elements, and the same holds true for the ‘straight’ filamentous forms which are also present in cultures of branching strains. The ‘mycelial’ forms, on the other hand, disintegrate at this time (fourth or fifth day of cultivation), and it is uncertain whether they contribute (by partial fragmentation) to the masses of small mono- or binucleate forms which are the predominant element in old cultures of all the strains investigated.

The chromatinic structures of avian tubercle bacilli have the same staining properties as those of ordinary non-acid-fast bacteria but differ from them in their behaviour during the early development of the bacilli.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Hygiene , Volume 45 , Issue 4 , December 1947 , pp. 413 - 416
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1947

References

REFERENCES

Alexander-Jackson, E. (1945). Quoted from Biol. Abstr. (1946), 20, 8, 15, 615.Google Scholar
Besançon, F. B. & Philibert, A. P. (1924). C.R. Soc. Biol., Paris, 90, 475.Google Scholar
Brieger, E. M. (1944). J. Path. Bact. 57, 282.Google Scholar
Brieger, E. M. & Fell, H. B. (1945). J. Hyg., Lond., 44, 158.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Epstein, G., Ravieli-Birger, E. & Svinkiny, A. (1936). J. Batt. Immun. 16, 1.Google Scholar
Fell, H. B. & Brieger, E. M. (1947). J. Hyg., Lond. (in press).Google Scholar
Jensen, H. L. (1934). Proc. Linn. Soc., N.S.W., 59, 112.Google Scholar
Klieneberger-Nobel, E. (1947). J. Gen. Microbiol. 1, 22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kolle, W. & von Wasserman, A. (1913). Handb. d. path. Microorganismen, vol. 5, 2nd ed., 315.Google Scholar
Neumann, F. (1941). Zbl. Bakt. II, Abt. 103, 385–400.Google Scholar
Piekarski, G. (1937). Arch. Microbiol. 8, 428–39.Google Scholar
v. Plotho, O. (1940). Arch. Microbiol. 11, 285.Google Scholar
Porter, K. R. & Yegian, D. (1945). J. Bact. 50, 563.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robinow, C. F. (1944). J. Hyg., Camb., 43, 413–23.Google Scholar
Robinow, C. F. (1945). Addendum to The Bacterial Cell, by Dubos, R. J.. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Stapp, C. (1942). Zbl. Bakt. II, Abt. 105, 1.Google Scholar
Topley, W. W. C. & Wilson, G. S. (1946). Principles of Bacteriology and Immunity. London: Arnold.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wyckoff, R. W. J. & Smithburn, K. C. (1933). J. Infect. Dis. 53, 201.CrossRefGoogle Scholar