Mean values and standard deviation of different stages of germination and outgrowth of untreated and wet-heat-treated individual B. subtilis sporesa.

aSpores of B. subtilis 1A700 were wet-heat-treated or not, then heat-activated and germinated in defined minimal (MOPS-buffered) medium including AGFK, and various germination and outgrowth parameters of individual spores were calculated as described in the Materials and Methods.bMean time of different stages is given including the standard deviation. The amount of spores/cells analyzed from each stage and gathered from three independent biological replicates is given in brackets. The asterisk indicates that the mean of the distributions between the stress and control experiment are significantly different (t-test, PF-test, P