[Inoculum sizes necessary for maintaining the activity of Mycobacterium leprae in cell-free liquid media]

Evidence was presented in the previous paper that the activity of cells of Mycobacterium leprae was maintained in the phosphate buffer(pH 7) containing fetal calf serum (10%) with/without glycerin (2%) for approximately 4 weeks during incubation of cells at 30 degrees C, when the inoculum having more than 3,000 pg ATP was used. In the present paper, it is confirmed that the definite inoculum sizes are essential for obtaining the reproducible results that are described above, by using the inocula containing more and less than 3,000 pg ATP.