Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Spiral bacteria are another major bacterial cell morphology. [2] [30] [31] [32] Spiral bacteria can be sub-classified as spirilla, spirochetes, or vibrios based on the number of twists per cell, cell thickness, cell flexibility, and motility. [33] Bacteria are known to evolve specific traits to survive in their ideal environment. [34]
The bacterial cell wall differs from that of all other organisms by the presence of peptidoglycan which is located immediately outside of the cell membrane. Peptidoglycan is made up of a polysaccharide backbone consisting of alternating N-Acetylmuramic acid (NAM) and N-acetylglucosamine (NAG) residues in equal amounts.
Bacterial morphological plasticity refers to changes in the shape and size that bacterial cells undergo when they encounter stressful environments. Although bacteria have evolved complex molecular strategies to maintain their shape, many are able to alter their shape as a survival strategy in response to protist predators, antibiotics, the immune response, and other threats.
Pleomorphism has been observed in some members of the Deinococcaceae family of bacteria. [1] The modern definition of pleomorphism in the context of bacteriology is based on variation of morphology or functional methods of the individual cell, rather than a heritable change of these characters as previously believed. [1]
E. coli stains gram-negative because its cell wall is composed of a thin peptidoglycan layer and an outer membrane. During the staining process, E. coli picks up the color of the counterstain safranin and stains pink. The outer membrane surrounding the cell wall provides a barrier to certain antibiotics such that E. coli is not damaged by ...
[1]: 167–8 Bacteria that produce capsules often have a slimy (mucoid) consistency. [2]: 495 When certain microorganisms are grown on blood agar, they may digest the blood in the medium, causing visible hemolysis (destruction of red blood cells) on the agar plate. In colonial morphology, hemolysis is classified into three types: alpha-, beta ...
All Aquaspirillum species are rigid helical cells with the exception of A. delicatum and A. fasciculus. The cells measure 0.2–1.5 mcm in diameter. They all have a polar membrane underneath their cytoplasmic membrane, and generally have two tufts of flagella, on each pole. However, they may instead have one single flagellum at each pole ...
Bacterial species differ in the number and arrangement of flagella on their surface; some have a single flagellum (monotrichous), a flagellum at each end (amphitrichous), clusters of flagella at the poles of the cell (lophotrichous), while others have flagella distributed over the entire surface of the cell (peritrichous).