Unheated spores of nonproteolytic Clostridium botulinumwere able to lead to growth in sterile deoxygenated turnip, spring green, helda bean, broccoli, or potato juice, although the probability of growth was low and the time to growth was longer than the time to growth in culture media. With all five vegetable juices tested, the probability of growth increased when spores were inoculated into the juice and then heated for 2 min in a water bath at 80°C. The probability of growth was greater in bean or broccoli juice than in culture media following 10 min of heat treatment in these media. Growth was prevented by heat treatment of spores in vegetable juices or culture media at 80°C for 100 min. We show for the first time that adding heat-treated vegetable juice to culture media can increase the number of heat-damaged spores of C. botulinum that can lead to colony formation.

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Small molecule screening, the systematic encounter of biology space with chemical space, has provoked the emergence of a whole industry that recreates itself by constant iterative improvements to this process. The authors describe an approach to tackle the problem for one of the most time-consuming steps in the execution of a screening campaign, namely, the reformatting of high-throughput screening test compounds from master plates to daughter assay plates used in the execution of the screen. Through an engineered storage procedure, they prepare plates ahead of the screening process with the respective compounds in a ready-to-use format. They show the biological inertness of the method and how it facilitates efficient recovery of compound activity. This uncoupling of normally interconnected processes provides time and compound savings, avoids repeated freeze-thaw cycles of compound solutions, and removes the problems associated with the DMSO sensitivity of certain assays types. (Journal of Biomolecular Screening 2005:573-580)