New methods for killing spores of Bacillota that may have applied utility

Spores of the Bacillota phylum, which includes several bacterial species of significant economic and public health concern, are among the most durable and recalcitrant observed in nature. Their properties of extreme resistance to a raft of physicochemical regimens that are otherwise cidal to their planktonic counterparts are conferred by a unique cellular architecture and physiology that renders them metabolically dormant but primed to rapidly return to the vegetative and potentially deleterious state. This review considers contemporary approaches and developments aimed at killing or eradicating spores with a focus on techniques that may be applicable to the food industry. These include innovations with chemical sporicides and physical approaches aimed at circumventing traditional thermal-based approaches to killing spores and their associated negative effects on product properties. Despite progress in both of these broad areas, we posit that the “germinate to eradicate” approach is perhaps best placed for wider implementation in the food industry, building upon recent progress in understanding germination at the molecular level, and offering a plausible route to structure-led design of small molecules that can efficiently trigger germination across all Bacillota spores, sensitizing them to killing by mild heat treatment.