A Review on the Kinds of Potentially-Byssinogenic Gram-Negative Bacteria that Occur on Raw Cotton Fiber

Byssinosis is a pulmonary problem experienced by some workers in areas of textile mills where cotton, flax, or other fibers are being mechanically processed prior to spinning. It has long been associated with dust in the air of the mill. As it occurs in U.S. cotton mills, byssinosis has been attributed at least in part to a gram-negative endotoxin-bearing bacterial component of the dust dispersed from fiber into air (Jacobs and Wakelyn, 1988). Bacteria, including gram-negatives, have been shown to grow on the fiber in open bolls before harvest; such growth occurs especially during rainy weather (Simpson and Marsh, 1986; Simpson et al., 1987b). Bacterial growth on fiber is minimal in the San Joaquin Valley of California, where the weather is exceptionally dry in the period between boll opening and harvest (Simpson and Marsh, 1985). Until recently, the gram-negative bacteria on commercial cotton fiber have been only incompletely identified. We briefly review here the identification of such bacteria and discuss practical implications of these findings in relation to the byssinosis problem.