Diversity of structure of bacteria
Although bacterial cells are much smaller and simpler in structure than eukaryotic cells, the bacteria are an exceedingly diverse group of organisms that differ in size, shape, habitat, and metabolism. Much of the knowledge about bacteria has come from studies of disease-causing bacteria, which are more readily isolated in pure culture and more easily investigated than are many of the free-living species of bacteria. It must be noted that many free-living bacteria are quite different from the bacteria that are adapted to live as animal parasites or symbionts. Thus, there are no absolute rules about bacterial composition or structure, and there are many exceptions to any general statement.
Individual bacteria can assume one of three basic shapes: spherical (coccus), rodlike (bacillus), or curved (vibrio, spirillum, or spirochete). Considerable variation is seen in the actual shapes of bacteria, and cells can be stretched or compressed in one dimension. Bacteria that do not separate from one another after cell division form characteristic clusters that are helpful in their identification. For example, some cocci are found mainly in pairs, including Streptococcus pneumoniae, a pneumococcus that causes bacterial lobar pneumonia, and Neisseria gonorrhoeae, a gonococcus that causes the sexually transmitted disease gonorrhea. Most streptococci resemble a long strand of beads, whereas the staphylococci form random clumps (the name “staphylococci” is derived from the Greek word staphyle, meaning “cluster of grapes”). In addition, some coccal bacteria occur as square or cubical packets. The rod-shaped bacilli usually occur singly, but some strains form long chains, such as rods of the corynebacteria, normal inhabitants of the mouth that are frequently attached to one another at random angles. Some bacilli have pointed ends, whereas others have squared ends, and some rods are bent into a comma shape. These bent rods are often called vibrios and include Vibrio cholerae, which causes cholera. Other shapes of bacteria include the spirilla, which are bent and rebent, and the spirochetes, which form a helix similar to a corkscrew, in which the cell body is wrapped around a central fibre called the axial filament.
Individual bacteria can assume one of three basic shapes: spherical (coccus), rodlike (bacillus), or curved (vibrio, spirillum, or spirochete)
The bacterium Streptococcus mutans is an example of a spherical (coccus) bacterium. This species of bacteria commonly aggregates into pairs and short chains.
David M. Phillips/Visuals Unlimited
Bacteria are the smallest living entities. An average-size bacterium—such as the rod-shaped Escherichia coli, a normal inhabitant of the intestinal tract of humans and animals—is about 2 micrometres (μm; millionths of a metre) long and 0.5 μm in diameter, and the spherical cells of Staphylococcus aureus are up to 1 μm in diameter. A few bacterial types are even smaller, such as Mycoplasma pneumoniae, which is one of the smallest bacteria, ranging from about 0.1 to 0.25 μm in width and roughly 1 to 1.5 μm in length; the rod-shaped Bordetella pertussis, which is the causative agent of whooping cough, ranging from 0.2 to 0.5 μm in diameter and 0.5 to 1 μm in length; and the corkscrew-shaped Treponema pallidum, which is the causative agent of syphilis, averaging only 0.1 to 0.2 μm in diameter but 6 to 15 μm in length. The cyanobacterium Synechococcus averages about 0.5 to 1.6 μm in diameter. Some bacteria are relatively large, such as Azotobacter, which has diameters of 2 to 5 μm or more; and Achromatium, which has a minimum width of 5 μm and a maximum length of 100 μm, depending on the species. Giant bacteria can be visible with the unaided eye, such as Thiomargarita namibiensis, which averages 750 μm in diameter, and the rod-shaped Epulopiscium fishelsoni, which ranges from 30 to more than 600 μm in length.
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