Bacteria Genomes - BACILLUS LICHENIFORMIS

Bacillus licheniformis is a Gram-positive, motile, spore-forming, facultatively anaerobic rod belonging to the B. subtilis group of Bacilli. It is an apathogenic soil organism that is mainly associated with plant and plant materials in nature but can be isolated from nearly everywhere due to its highly resistant endospores that are disseminated with the dust.

Bacillus licheniformis is toxinogenic and food poisoning in humans has been associated with cooked meat, poultry and vegetable dishes (particularly stews and curries which have been served with rice). Food poisoning by Bacillus licheniformis is characterised by diarrhoea, although vomiting occurs in half of reported cases.

Bacillus licheniformis is used by industry to produce proteases and amylases. Proteases are needed in huge amounts for example as additions to washing agents. An enzyme was first used to improve the effectiveness of a laundry detergent in 1913 by a German named Otto Rohm, the founder of the giant chemical company Rohm and Hass. The proteolytic enzyme he used, derived from milled animal pancreases, was quite crude and contained many impurities which, in turn, sometimes stained the very textile it was supposed to clean. Neither was the process of enzyme extraction economical enough to include it routinely in household detergents. Commercially feasible quantities are now produced through fermentation of Bacillus subtilis or Bacillus licheniformis.This was made possible in the last two decades by the rapid advances in enzymology and fermentation technology. Although numerous other microorganisms produce proteases and amylases, the types secreted by the these strains have the advantage that they work best at the warm alkaline conditions prevailing in washing liquids. They also do not lose their activity in an environment which contains a multitude of potentially inhibitory chemicals routinely formulated into laundry detergents such as surface active agents, magnesium or calcium ions, builders (sodium tripolyphosphate), perfumes, and other additives. In the U.S., about 50% of liquid detergents, 25% of powder detergents, and almost all powdered bleach additives now contain enzymes to help break down stains that are otherwise hard to remove with conventional surfactants alone.

B. licheniformis is also used to make the polypeptide antibiotic Bacitracin.

There are no indications that B. licheniformis is pathogenic to plants and investigation has begun into the effects of inoculation with a strain of Bacillus licheniformis on the growth of pepper and tomato plants. Initial results show that the effects were greater on pepper than on tomato, treated plants had less disease than non-treated plants. In further experiment the total weight of pepper harvested from inoculated plants increased significantly with regard to control non-inoculated plants. This strain had considerable colonisation and competitive ability, and it could be used as a biofertiliser or biocontrol agent without altering normal management in greenhouses.

References:

J. Mol. Microbiol. Biotechnol. 7(4):204-211(2004)
Genome Biol. 5:R77-R77(2004)
http://www.arrowscientific.com.au/Bacillus_licheniformis.html
http://www.g2l.bio.uni-goettingen.de/projects/c_proj_bl.html
http://www.edpsciences.org/articles/agro/abs/2004/04/A03018/A03018.html
http://www.epa.gov/opptintr/biotech/fra/fra005.htm