Although I don't personally "believe" in existence of living nanobacteria
capable of reproduction, you can read original papers which are not so
plentiful. I went into that issue myself some time ago, and got an
impression that in many cases what is considered as microorganisms is just
calcite or other mineral sediments in the media. In some cases though, I
believe known bacteria, especially isolates from extreme environments, can
form some sort of nanovesicles when grown under thus extremely non-optimal
conditions in the lab, so that could be an unusual way of cell destruction.
However, the latter is not really documented in literature so far, just
words of mouth. If you want to read on nanobacteria, go to
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?CMD=&DB=PubMed ,
enter "nanobacteria" in the search field and you will get references and in
some cases full versions of papers.
Btw, same for "colwell rr cholera"
Emir
"John Cherwonogrodzky" <jcherwon at dres.dnd.ca> wrote in message
news:3C151221.78C622BA at dres.dnd.ca...
> Dear Colleagues:
> A few years ago, I was at a conference (I believe it was in Munich,
> Germany, but I'm not sure) and a speaker gave a short presentation on
> nano-organisms (as opposed to micro-organisms). Tissue cultures
> sometimes weaken or die with little understanding why. Often there is
> the assumption that the cause is mycoplasma. The investigator developed
> immuno-specific antiserum against the causative agent and presented
> slides that these were not mycoplasma, but far smaller parasitic
> bacteria (coating the outside of the tissue culture cell, possibly
> secreting toxins to cause cell death). These infectious agent were in
> the range of 10 nanometers across.
> Has anyone heard of this and can they give me a lead on the
> presenter so I could get more information?
> Also, a while back I read that Dr. Rita Colwell has found that
> cholera can enter a phase of growth where the cells are compact and can
> squeeze through a filter. Does anyone have references I can look these
> up?
> Thanks....John
>
