Bacillus clausii

Bacillus clausii is an obligately aerobic, Gram-positive, endospore-forming rod and a facultative alkaliphile, growing in alkaline conditions that most probiotic organisms will not tolerate. Its name has moved twice: reclassified as Alkalihalobacillus clausii by Patel and Gupta in 2020 when the overcrowded genus Bacillus was split, and then transferred to Shouchella clausii by Joshi and colleagues in 2021. All three names describe the same organism, and buyers writing labels or dossiers for different markets should expect to see any of them in the source literature. The commercially established presentation is the ready-to-drink oral spore suspension: 2 billion spores in a 5 mL single-dose vial, the format used across the large clinical programmes conducted with the four-strain O/C, N/R, SIN and T combination. Those four strains are specified together precisely because of their poly-antibiotic resistance profile, a documented chromosomal characteristic of the combination; genome analyses of A. clausii report antimicrobial resistance genes of low clinical relevance and no plasmids, which points to a low risk of horizontal transfer. Other documented strains include UBBC-07 and AO1125. Thovek supplies bulk spore concentrate for customers formulating their own vials, sticks or capsules, and can arrange contract filling of the 5 mL suspension format. The suspension is an aqueous preparation of spores in purified water, and can be specified sugar-free and preservative-free. Because it is a liquid it is the least forgiving format in this range: it must be shipped upright, protected from light, held within the stated temperature window, and shaken before use since spores sediment on standing. The dry spore concentrate is far more robust and is the better choice where transit conditions are uncertain. The organism is grown on non-animal media, so both formats are vegan and vegetarian suitable and free of milk, egg, fish, crustacean and nut inputs; request the lot-specific soy and cereal-gluten declaration for the fermentation medium. Note that in several markets B. clausii oral suspension is registered as a medicinal product rather than a food supplement, which changes both the regulatory route and the tariff heading — tell us the destination market before we quote.