Revival and Identification of Bacterial Spores in 25- to 40-Million-Year-Old Dominican Amber
Science
19 May 1995
Vol 268, Issue 5213
pp. 1060-1064
Abstract
A bacterial spore was revived, cultured, and identified from the abdominal contents of extinct bees preserved for 25 to 40 million years in buried Dominican amber. Rigorous surface decontamination of the amber and aseptic procedures were used during the recovery of the bacterium. Several lines of evidence indicated that the isolated bacterium was of ancient origin and not an extant contaminant. The characteristic enzymatic, biochemical, and 16S ribosomal DNA profiles indicated that the ancient bacterium is most closely related to extant Bacillus sphaericus.
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Science
Volume 268 | Issue 5213
19 May 1995
19 May 1995
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© 1995.
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Published in print: 19 May 1995
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- Raúl J. Cano,
- Monica K. Borucki
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- Microbial dormancy in the marine subsurface: Global endospore abundance and response to burial, Science Advances, 5, 2, (2019)./doi/10.1126/sciadv.aav1024
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