Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
A coccus (plural cocci, from the Latin coccinus (scarlet) and derived from the Greek kokkos (berry)), is any microorganism (usually bacteria) [1] whose overall shape is spherical or nearly spherical. [2] [3] [4] Coccus refers to the shape of the bacteria and can contain multiple genera, such as staphylococci or streptococci. Cocci can grow in ...
For example, Escherichia coli cells, an "average" sized bacterium, are about 2 μm (micrometres) long and 0.5 μm in diameter, with a cell volume of 0.6–0.7 μm 3. [1] This corresponds to a wet mass of about 1 picogram (pg), assuming that the cell consists mostly of water. The dry mass of a single cell can be estimated as 23% of the wet mass ...
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.
A small number of other unusual shapes have been described, such as star-shaped bacteria. [44] This wide variety of shapes is determined by the bacterial cell wall and cytoskeleton and is important because it can influence the ability of bacteria to acquire nutrients, attach to surfaces, swim through liquids and escape predators. [45] [46]
[31] [32] [33] Bacteria may alter their shape by simpler transitions from rod to coccoid (and vice versa) as in Escherichia coli, [34] by more complex transitions while establishing multicellularity [31] or by the development of specialized cells, structures or appendages where the population presents a pleomorphic lifestyle. [35]
Bacillus (Latin "stick") is a genus of Gram-positive, rod-shaped bacteria, a member of the phylum Bacillota, with 266 named species.The term is also used to describe the shape (rod) of other so-shaped bacteria; and the plural Bacilli is the name of the class of bacteria to which this genus belongs.
A spirochaete (/ ˈ s p aɪ r oʊ ˌ k iː t /) [4] or spirochete is a member of the phylum Spirochaetota (also called Spirochaetes [5] / ˌ s p aɪ r oʊ ˈ k iː t iː z /), which contains distinctive diderm (double-membrane) Gram-negative bacteria, most of which have long, helically coiled (corkscrew-shaped or spiraled, hence the name) cells ...
L-form bacteria, also known as L-phase bacteria, L-phase variants or cell wall-deficient bacteria (CWDB), are growth forms derived from different bacteria. They lack cell walls . [ 1 ] Two types of L-forms are distinguished: unstable L-forms , spheroplasts that are capable of dividing, but can revert to the original morphology, and stable L ...