The simple culture method of cellular slime molds using Bacillus natto Sawamura as a nutritious material

Abstract

Cellular slime mold is an interesting teaching material for high school biology class, because it has a unique life cycle. However it is rarely used in high school biology class, because we need to prepare Eschericlia coli or other gram-negative bacteria as a feed to culture this material. In this paper, I describe the effectiveness of Bacillus natto, which is a common bacterium for making Natto, a popular fermentated food in Japan, as a feed to culture cellular slime mold. Before making the suspension of B. natto from Natto, Natto was kept in the chilled room (0~1°C) of a refrigerator. This step is essential to obtain sufficient spores of B. natto. Using the suspension of B. natto, I could easily culture various kind of cellular slime molds obtained from soils in various sites in Saitama Pref. as well as those reserved in the Laboratory of the National Science Museum in Japan.