Spore-forming potential
The method of Oscariz et al. (1999) and Foldes et al.
(2000) with certain modification was followed to determine
the spore-forming ability of the selected strains
and reference standard. Briefly, overnight-grown cultures
(106 CFU mL
1) were inoculated in LB broth
and incubated at 37 0.2 °C. After 48 h of incubation,
cultures were heated at 80 °C for 15 min on
water bath to destroy all the vegetative cells. The viable
count was determined on LB agar plates. Cultures
without heat treatment served as control.