The Bog

FishFish

Hi and Happy Xmas!
Cleaning the bog (one of them) today and using the poundland bleach to assist and on reading the instructions found the statement 'Kills 99.9% of Germs' So I thought that if this stuff can deal with 5 year old cack then wtf are the 0.1% that can take the stuff and survive? Any microbiologists?

Briggo

Isn't that more so a 'cover your ass' thing, saying yes you cleaned your stuff with this but if you get ill from something that was in that area then its not our fault as we don't claim our product to be perfect.

99.9% sounds better than saying, it's 92%.

paul.skibum

I found this online -

"By investigating how bacteria respond to stressful conditions, the Jakob lab has uncovered several ways that bacteria in our bodies—and on our kitchen counters—can survive attack by hypochlorous acid. One such survival mechanism uses a protein called Hsp33, which is a molecular chaperone that helps other proteins fold into and maintain their normal forms. Protection by Hsp33 lets bacteria refold their proteins once a stressful situation has passed, thereby allowing the cells to survive. The Jakob lab also has discovered several bacterial proteins that sense hypochlorous acid and, in response, activate genes that help the bacteria eliminate toxins produced by exposure to the noxious chemical.

Recently, the team discovered that a simple inorganic molecule called polyphosphate also serves as a molecular chaperone within bacterial cells. Polyphosphate, which likely existed before life arose on Earth and is produced by almost all organisms, from bacteria to humans, may be one of the oldest molecular chaperones in existence. Bacteria lacking polyphosphate are very sensitive to the cellular stress caused by bleach and are less likely to cause infection.

Together, these results provide insights into how modern-day bacteria defend against immune attack and how early organisms survived environmental challenges. The studies also point to potential targets for antimicrobial drug development. "Many of these protective mechanisms that bacteria use in response to bleach are specific to bacteria," said Jakob, potentially making it possible to target these defenses without harming human cells. She and her team hope to find drugs to exploit this specificity and disarm bacterial defenses against bleach, allowing our immune systems to finish cleaning house."

Doesn't state what bacteria actually can survive attack by bleach but clearly its a possibility.