Bacteria are prokaryotes, so they lack a nucleus or organelles.

Sizes from 0.3 to 15 micrometers.

The world is full of bacteria. They are all over us, inside us, they help us with
metabolism, and they protect people from bad organisms.

More O2 is produced by bacteria when by plants.

Some antibiotics can kill off good bacteria that guard against yeast infections.
When you are on antibiotics, you should eat yogurt to replace good bacteria.

Bacteria parts

 Nucleoid = central circle of DNA (1 chromosome

 Inclusions = vacuoles, e.g. metachromatic inclusion which stores

phosphorous
  Plasmids = extrachromosomal DNA; these can provide resistance to
antibiotics.

 Cell membrane = phosphlipid bilayer with built-in ATP synthase and ETC
(electron transport chain)

 Cell wall = rigid layer of peptidoglycan (polypeptides & sugar chains) that
keeps the shape of the bacterium even in situations where there is too
much or too little water (hypotonic, hypertonic).

 Ribosomes

 Capsule (optional), also known as slime layer, which has the purpose
sticking the bacteria to some spot where food is hopefully plentiful e.g.
teeth. It also hides the bacterium from the immune system. Made of
glycocalyx.

 Pili (singular pilus): protrusions that help the bacterium hang on to other
objects and which also allow bacteria to send genetic material to one
another (F+ dominant to F- recipient). This gene transfer is like a simple
early sexual system.

 Lipopolysaccharide or LPS layer (optional): this chemical is a neurotoxin

for animals.

 Cytoplasm.

 Flagella (optional)

Shapes
There are three shapes:

 Coccus = spherical, e.g. streptococcus

 Bacillus = rod shaped, e.g. lactobacillus
 Spirillium = spiral

Movement
Movement is via flagella. Bacteria have several flagella configuations.
  Monotrichous = one flagellum
 Lophotrichous = many flagella at one end
 Amphitrichous = one flagellum at each end
 Peritrichous = many flagella all over
 Atrichous = no flagella

Swimming with flagella in pursuit of a chemical marker is chemotaxis.

Energy food consumption
There are four ways of getting energy:

 phototrophic = it makes its own energy using light to catalyze chemical

reactions
 chemotrophs = they consume chemical matter e.g. other organisms
 aerobes = they consume oxygen
 anaerobes = they are killed by O2

Antibiotics
Penicillin prevents bacteria from forming the peptidoglycan cell wall. Resistance
to penicillin is caused by a bacterium developing an enzyme to break it down.

 Tears have an enzyme lysozyme that breaks down peptidoglycan. The

bacteria that cause pink eye have an enzyme that breaks down lysozyme.
 Resistance to antibiotics is transferred between bacteria due to plasmid
transfer along a pilus.
 Some antibiotics target bacterial ribosomes, which are very different from
non-bacterial ribosomes. Examples: erythromycin, tetracycline.

Capsule slime layer
The sticky layer lets bacteria stick to useful sites e.g. to teeth, to rocks, to
bronchioles (bronchitis).

Bacteria which lack the capsule are easily killed by the immune system.

Reproduction
They reproduce by binary fission, which is like mitosis.
Endospores
In adverse environments, some bacteria form a wall around the nucleoid that
protects them long-term, even for millions of years.

Anthrax has survived for millions of years in its endospore form.

Endosymbiotic theory
This theory says that eukaryotes got their mitochondria & chloroplasts by
ingesting bacteria but for some reason not eaten. It is supported by at least the
following evidence.

 Mitochondria and chloroplasts are the same size as bacteria.

 Mitochondria and chloroplasts produce energy in a very similar way to
bacteria.
 Mitochondria and chloroplasts have their own DNA, which are a single
circular chromosome.
 Mitochondria and chloroplasts DNA has been scanned and are very similar
to the DNA of bacteria.
 Eukaryotes are known to ingest bacteria.

Nitrogen fixation
Some bacteria convert N2 to ammonia NH3. This is useful to plants.

Toxicity
Only 1% of bacteria are harmful. The rest are helpful to various extents.

The Gram test (invented by Hans Gram) is supposed to test for toxicity by
detecting LPS. Gram positive means nontoxic, Gram negative means toxic.
However there are many exceptions.

Symbiosis
There are 3 symbiotic modes:

 Mutualism, in which both bacteria & host benefit.

 Commensalism, in which bacteria benefit and host is neither harmed nor
helped.
  Parasitism, in which bacteria benefit but the host is harmed.

Well known bacteria

 E. Coli
 Clostridium botulidium
 Streptococcus
 Staphococcus
 Congentoritis = causes pink eye
 Borrelea burgdorferi = Lyme disease (left untreated it attacks the joints,
then the brain
 Lactobacillus = used to make yogurt
 Heliobacter pylori = causes ulcers
 Trychonympha = bacteria that termites rely upon to break down wood.

acteria Cell Structure

They are as unrelated to human beings as living things can be, but bacteria are essential to human
life and life on planet Earth. Although they are notorious for their role in causing human diseases,
from tooth decay to the Black Plague, there are beneficial species that are essential to good health.
For example, one species that lives symbiotically in the large intestine manufactures vitamin K, an
essential blood clotting factor. Other species are beneficial indirectly. Bacteria give yogurt its tangy
flavor and sourdough bread its sour taste. They make it possible for ruminant animals (cows, sheep,
goats) to digest plant cellulose and for some plants, (soybean, peas, alfalfa) to convert nitrogen to a
more usable form.

Bacteria are prokaryotes, lacking well-defined nuclei and membrane-bound organelles, and with
chromosomes composed of a single closed DNA circle. They come in many shapes and sizes, from
minute spheres, cylinders and spiral threads, to flagellated rods, and filamentous chains. They are
found practically everywhere on Earth and live in some of the most unusual and seemingly
inhospitable places.

Evidence shows that bacteria were in existence as long as 3.5 billion years ago, making them one of
the oldest living organisms on the Earth. Even older than the bacteria are the archeans (also called
archaebacteria) tiny prokaryotic organisms that live only in extreme environments: boiling water,
super-salty pools, sulfur-spewing volcanic vents, acidic water, and deep in the Antarctic ice. Many
scientists now believe that the archaea and bacteria developed separately from a common ancestor
nearly four billion years ago. Millions of years later, the ancestors of today's eukaryotes split off from
the archaea. Despite the superficial resemblance to bacteria, biochemically and genetically, the
archea are as different from bacteria as bacteria are from humans.

In the late 1600s, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek became the first to study bacteria under the microscope.
During the nineteenth century, the French scientist Louis Pasteur and the German physician Robert
Koch demonstrated the role of bacteria as pathogens (causing disease). The twentieth century saw
numerous advances in bacteriology, indicating their diversity, ancient lineage, and general
importance. Most notably, a number of scientists around the world made contributions to the field of
microbial ecology, showing that bacteria were essential to food webs and for the overall health of the
Earth's ecosystems. The discovery that some bacteria produced compounds lethal to other bacteria
led to the development of antibiotics, which revolutionized the field of medicine.

There are two different ways of grouping bacteria. They can be divided into three types based on
their response to gaseous oxygen. Aerobic bacteria require oxygen for their health and existence
and will die without it. Anerobic bacteria can't tolerate gaseous oxygen at all and die when exposed
to it. Facultative aneraobes prefer oxygen, but can live without it.

The second way of grouping them is by how they obtain their energy. Bacteria that have to consume
and break down complex organic compounds are heterotrophs. This includes species that are found
in decaying material as well as those that utilize fermentation or respiration. Bacteria that create their
own energy, fueled by light or through chemical reactions, are autotrophs.

 Capsule - Some species of bacteria have a third protective covering, a capsule made up of
polysaccharides (complex carbohydrates). Capsules play a number of roles, but the most
important are to keep the bacterium from drying out and to protect it from phagocytosis
(engulfing) by larger microorganisms. The capsule is a major virulence factor in the major
disease-causing bacteria, such as Escherichia coli and Streptococcus pneumoniae.
Nonencapsulated mutants of these organisms are avirulent, i.e. they don't cause disease.
 Cell Envelope - The cell envelope is made up of two to three layers: the interior cytoplasmic
membrane, the cell wall, and -- in some species of bacteria -- an outer capsule.
 Cell Wall - Each bacterium is enclosed by a rigid cell wall composed of peptidoglycan, a
protein-sugar (polysaccharide) molecule. The wall gives the cell its shape and surrounds the
cytoplasmic membrane, protecting it from the environment. It also helps to anchor
appendages like the pili and flagella, which originate in the cytoplasm membrane and
protrude through the wall to the outside. The strength of the wall is responsible for keeping
the cell from bursting when there are large differences in osmotic pressure between the
cytoplasm and the environment.

Cell wall composition varies widely amongst bacteria and is one of the most important factors
in bacterial species analysis and differentiation. For example, a relatively thick, meshlike
structure that makes it possible to distinguish two basic types of bacteria. A technique
devised by Danish physician Hans Christian Gram in 1884, uses a staining and washing
technique to differentiate between the two forms. When exposed to a gram stain, gram-
positive bacteria retain the purple color of the stain because the structure of their cell walls
traps the dye. In gram-negative bacteria, the cell wall is thin and releases the dye readily
when washed with an alcohol or acetone solution.

 Cytoplasm - The cytoplasm, or protoplasm, of bacterial cells is where the functions for cell
growth, metabolism, and replication are carried out. It is a gel-like matrix composed of water,
enzymes, nutrients, wastes, and gases and contains cell structures such as ribosomes, a
chromosome, and plasmids. The cell envelope encases the cytoplasm and all its
components. Unlike the eukaryotic (true) cells, bacteria do not have a membrane enclosed
nucleus. The chromosome, a single, continuous strand of DNA, is localized, but not
contained, in a region of the cell called the nucleoid. All the other cellular components are
scattered throughout the cytoplasm.

One of those components, plasmids, are small, extrachromosomal genetic structures carried
by many strains of bacteria. Like the chromosome, plasmids are made of a circular piece of
DNA. Unlike the chromosome, they are not involved in reproduction. Only the chromosome
 has the genetic instructions for initiating and carrying out cell division, or binary fission, the
primary means of reproduction in bacteria. Plasmids replicate independently of the
chromosome and, while not essential for survival, appear to give bacteria a selective
advantage.

Plasmids are passed on to other bacteria through two means. For most plasmid types,
copies in the cytoplasm are passed on to daughter cells during binary fission. Other types of
plasmids, however, form a tubelike structure at the surface called a pilus that passes copies
of the plasmid to other bacteria during conjugation, a process by which bacteria exchange
genetic information. Plasmids have been shown to be instrumental in the transmission of
special properties, such as antibiotic drug resistance, resistance to heavy metals, and
virulence factors necessary for infection of animal or plant hosts. The ability to insert specific
genes into plasmids have made them extremely useful tools in the fields of molecular biology
and genetics, specifically in the area of genetic engineering.

 Cytoplasmic Membrane - A layer of phospholipids and proteins, called the cytoplasmic

membrane, encloses the interior of the bacterium, regulating the flow of materials in and out
of the cell. This is a structural trait bacteria share with all other living cells; a barrier that
allows them to selectively interact with their environment. Membranes are highly organized
and asymmetric having two sides, each side with a different surface and different functions.
Membranes are also dynamic, constantly adapting to different conditions.
 Flagella - Flagella (singular, flagellum) are hairlike structures that provide a means of
locomotion for those bacteria that have them. They can be found at either or both ends of a
bacterium or all over its surface. The flagella beat in a propeller-like motion to help the
bacterium move toward nutrients; away from toxic chemicals; or, in the case of the
photosynthetic cyanobacteria; toward the light.
 Nucleoid - The nucleoid is a region of cytoplasm where the chromosomal DNA is located. It
is not a membrane bound nucleus, but simply an area of the cytoplasm where the strands of
DNA are found. Most bacteria have a single, circular chromosome that is responsible for
replication, although a few species do have two or more. Smaller circular auxiliary DNA
strands, called plasmids, are also found in the cytoplasm.
 Pili - Many species of bacteria have pili (singular, pilus), small hairlike projections emerging
from the outside cell surface. These outgrowths assist the bacteria in attaching to other cells
and surfaces, such as teeth, intestines, and rocks. Without pili, many disease-causing
bacteria lose their ability to infect because they're unable to attach to host tissue. Specialized
pili are used for conjugation, during which two bacteria exchange fragments of plasmid DNA.
 Ribosomes - Ribosomes are microscopic "factories" found in all cells, including bacteria.
They translate the genetic code from the molecular language of nucleic acid to that of amino
acids—the building blocks of proteins. Proteins are the molecules that perform all the
functions of cells and living organisms. Bacterial ribosomes are similar to those of
eukaryotes, but are smaller and have a slightly different composition and molecular structure.
Bacterial ribosomes are never bound to other organelles as they sometimes are (bound to
the endoplasmic reticulum) in eukaryotes, but are free-standing structures distributed
throughout the cytoplasm. There are sufficient differences between bacterial ribosomes and
eukaryotic ribosomes that some antibiotics will inhibit the functioning of bacterial ribosomes,
but not a eukaryote's, thus killing bacteria but not the eukaryotic organisms they are
infecting.

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