The induction of bacterial endospore germination in simple aqueous solution by a variety of metabolic substances, alone and in various combinations, is well known. Systems of this type have been used extensively to investigate biochemical changes during the transition from spore to vegetative cell ; details of current knowledge of this subject have been recently reviewed by Stedman (9). Since the publication of this review, a previously undescribed phenomenon termed "auto-inhibition" has been shown in this laboratory to occur during germination of the spores of Bacillzrs globigii (10).In brief, it was reported that spores initially germinating in L-alanine and glucose solutions secrete an inhibitory substance which interferes with the germination of the remaining spores in the population. The present communication describes further studies on the induced germination of B. globigii and the influence of auto-inhibition on the germination pattern. EXPERIMENTAL Bacillus globigii, Fort Detrick strain, was used throughout the work. The organism was grown on "G" agar ( 1 ) fortified with 1% casein hydrolysate (dry weight basis) for 4-5 days, at which time microscopic observation showed that sporulation was complete.The spores were harvested, washed using the procedure of Stewart and Halvorson (11) and stored as concentrates in the freezer (-25" C.) . Spore suspensions stored for more than 2 weeks were discarded to avoid "aging" effects (2).In the germination induction experiments, concentrates were thawed, diluted in 0.067 M phosphate buffer (pH 7.0) to a concentration of 1 mg. dry weighuml., and heatshocked a t 65" C. for 15 minutes. Each tube contained glucose and L-alanine as inducers, 1 mg. spores, phosphate buffer and other substances (see Results) in a total volume of 5.0 ml., as described in a previous report (10). In a few instances, 0.05 M acetate buffer was substituted for the phosphate buffer; both buffers give essentially the same patterns of germination with alanine and glucose, although acetate is slightly slower than phosphate. .Percentage germination was determined by the turbidirnetric method of Hachisuka et al.(3) and occasionally confirmed by standard procedures involving uptake of methylene blue and loss of heat resistance (9).I n some instances kinetic analyses were performed by measuring the percentage germination in the presence and absence of specific exogenous inhibitors using the above germination induction method and by evaluating the data using the double reciprocal plot * of Lineweaver and Burk (5). In all cases, the maximum rate of germination occurred in the 1&20 minute interval after addition of inducers and inhibitors. Arbitrarily, the a The views expressed herein are those of the authors and are not necessarily similar to the views of the U. S. Department of the Navy. b* ' Present address :