Electron Beam Irradiation Dose Dependently Damages the Bacillus Spore Coat and Spore Membrane

Table 1

Bacillus spore viability after electron beam irradiation, as measured by flow cytometry (𝑛=6).^a

EB dose (kGy)	Viable counts ± SD	Non viable counts ± SD
0	45,291 ± 768	4,549 ± 774
5.3	41,369 ± 2,574	8,497 ± 2,516
10.4	39,739 ± 1,409*	10,157 ± 1,398*
16.0^b	31,124 ± 6,659^†	16,668 ± 4,033^†
21.7^b	4,787 ± 1,436^†	5,187 ± 1,430^†
Hypochlorous acid^b, c	33 ± 11^†	9840 ± 77^†

^aMean ± standard deviation for viable spores identified in Q2 and nonviable spores in Q3 of Figure 4
^bLess than 50,000 spores available for evaluation
^c𝑛=5
* 𝑃≤0.05 by the Tukey-Kramer test, as compared to 0 dose (unirradiated control)
^†𝑃≤0.001 by the Tukey-Kramer test, as compared to 0 dose (unirradiated control)