Re: What role do bacteria play in the production of linen?

Hi James

Linen is woven from the fibers of the flax plant. A process called retting, which involves microbial digestion of the plant, makes it easier to remove the fibers. First, the harvested stalks are soaked in water to make them swell. Aerobic bacteria on the plant start the retting process. "Aerobic" means they require the presence of oxygen to survive, just like you and me. The bacteria digest certain structural polysaccharides - or long chains of chemical units that make up some of the plant's stalk. They also consume *oxygen.* This latter function allows anaerobic species of bacteria (ones that can't live in the presence of O2) to thirve. Two species in particular, Clostridium felsinium, and Clostridium pectinovorum finish eating substances in the plant so the fibers can be easily separated and woven into linen.

Similar processes are used to isolate hemp for making rope, and have been used in times past in the curing of leather hides (bating). There's a good book called The Microbes, Our Unseen Friends, by Harold Rossmoore (1976) if you'd like to learn more about the role of microbes in industrial processes. Microbes carry out many important functions from making cheese and wine, to steps in the production of coffee, chocolate, and olives! They are also responsible for our ability to engineer recombinant drugs such as human insulin, or many of the vaccines now used in modern medicine