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Articles by Peter Awakowicz in JoVE
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Investigating the Detrimental Effects of Low Pressure Plasma Sterilization on the Survival of Bacillus subtilis Spores Using Live Cell Microscopy
Felix M. Fuchs1, Marina Raguse1,2,3, Marcel Fiebrandt2, Kazimierz Madela4, Peter Awakowicz2, Michael Laue4, Katharina Stapelmann3, Ralf Moeller1
1Department of Radiation Biology, Institute of Aerospace Medicine, Space Microbiology Research Group, German Aerospace Center (DLR e.V.), 2Institute of Electrical Engineering and Plasma Technology, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, Ruhr-University Bochum, 3Institute of Electrical Engineering and Plasma Technology, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, Biomedical Applications of Plasma Technology, Ruhr-University Bochum, 4Advanced Light and Electron Microscopy (ZBS 4), Robert Koch Institute
This protocol illustrates the important consecutive steps required to assess the relevance of monitoring vitality parameter and DNA repair processes in reviving Bacillus subtilis spores after treatment with low pressure plasma by tracking fluorescence-labelled DNA repair proteins via time-resolved confocal microscopy and scanning electron microscopy.
Other articles by Peter Awakowicz on PubMed
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Improvement of Biological Indicators by Uniformly Distributing Bacillus Subtilis Spores in Monolayers To Evaluate Enhanced Spore Decontamination Technologies
Applied and Environmental Microbiology.
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Pubmed ID: 26801572 Novel decontamination technologies, including cold low-pressure plasma and blue light (400 nm), are promising alternatives to conventional surface decontamination methods. However, the standardization of the assessment of such sterilization processes remains to be accomplished. Bacterial endospores of the genera Bacillus and Geobacillus are frequently used as biological indicators (BIs) of sterility. Ensuring standardized and reproducible BIs for reliable testing procedures is a significant problem in industrial settings. In this study, an electrically driven spray deposition device was developed, allowing fast, reproducible, and homogeneous preparation of Bacillus subtilis 168 spore monolayers on glass surfaces. A detailed description of the structural design as well as the operating principle of the spraying device is given. The reproducible formation of spore monolayers of up to 5 × 10(7) spores per sample was verified by scanning electron microscopy. Surface inactivation studies revealed that monolayered spores were inactivated by UV-C (254 nm), low-pressure argon plasma (500 W, 10 Pa, 100 standard cubic cm per min), and blue light (400 nm) significantly faster than multilayered spores were. We have thus succeeded in the uniform preparation of reproducible, highly concentrated spore monolayers with the potential to generate BIs for a variety of nonpenetrating surface decontamination techniques.
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