Fig. 5
Morphological heterogeneity of B. coagulans derived from a single colony. a There was a significant difference in hypha length. Scale bar: 20 μm. b The shorter B. coagulans cells (lower left corner) produced more lactic acid than the longer cells (top right corner). Scale bar: 100 μm. c Relationship between the hyphal length and lactic acid productivity of B. coagulans. The length of the hyphae in one droplet is shown in the columns, representing the average length of five randomly selected hyphae in a given droplet. The square symbol for each group is the average gray value for all the droplets in the group. The results show that the shorter B. coagulans cells produced more lactic acid than the longer cells