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Updated: May 31, 2026

Single-cell Microfluidic Analysis of Bacillus subtilis
Published on: January 26, 2018
Phylogenetic analysis of Bacillus subtilis strains applicable to natto (fermented soybean) production
Yuji Kubo1, Alejandro P Rooney, Yoshiki Tsukakoshi
1Industrial Technology Institute of Ibaraki Prefecture, Nagaoka, Ibarakimachi, Ibaraki, Japan.
Abstract:
Spore-forming Bacillus strains that produce extracellular poly-γ-glutamic acid were screened for their application to natto (fermented soybean food) fermentation. Among the 424 strains, including Bacillus subtilis and B. amyloliquefaciens, which we isolated from rice straw, 59 were capable of fermenting natto. Biotin auxotrophism was tightly linked to natto fermentation. A multilocus nucleotide sequence of six genes (rpoB, purH, gyrA, groEL, polC, and 16S rRNA) was used for phylogenetic analysis, and amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) analysis was also conducted on the natto-fermenting strains. The ability to ferment natto was inferred from the two principal components of the AFLP banding pattern, and natto-fermenting strains formed a tight cluster within the B. subtilis subsp. subtilis group.
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