Notice of RetractionKilling of Bacillus subtilis by Exogenous Hydroxyl Radicals

Notice of Retraction

After careful and considered review of the content of this paper by a duly constituted expert committee, this paper has been found to be in violation of IEEE´s Publication Principles.

We hereby retract the content of this paper. Reasonable effort should be made to remove all past references to this paper.

The presenting author of this paper has the option to appeal this decision by contacting TPII@ieee.org.

In this study, we used Bacillus subtilis 168, a spore-producing gram-positive bacterium, as a model to reveal the effects and mechanisms of killing by exogenous hydroxyl radical (OH·). The results showed that, exogenous OH· could kill B. subtilis efficiently. Nearly 99% of them was killed in 0.3 mg/L OH· solution, and 100% in 0.8 mg/L OH· solution. The exogenous OH· could damage biomolecules of B. subtilis. The quantity and the integrities of DNA, RNA and protein decreased with the increasing concentration of OH·. The activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT) and the content of H₂O₂, were analyzed after treated with different concentration of exogenous OH·. The results indicated that, the content of H₂O₂ was decreased, the activities of SOD and CAT were also changed.