BIOL240 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Gram-Positive Bacteria, Basal Body, Chemoreceptor
6 Dec 2016
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Document Summary
The morphology of bacterial cells is how we are going to start discussing bacteria their shapes and how their shapes. Bacteria can be spherical ( coccus cocci ), rod shaped ( bacillus . Bacilli ), comma-shaped ( vibrio vibrios ), spiral ( spirillum spirilla ), and pleiomorphic which have varied shapes. Spirals are great because they are great swimmers. Pleimorphic organisms usually are missing a rigid cell wall or are kind"ve a mix of rod and spiral. Sometimes these cells will group together, which is usually a hallmark of staphylococcus aureus, which usually leads to strep throat. Cell morphology general is not a good predictor of physiology, ecology, or phylogeny so it basically does not tell us much at all. What it looks like is a good indicator of what that cell is trying to do. There are 3 main selective forces that define the morphology which explain what the cell is trying to do.
