Typical Bacterial Cell

Typical Bacterial Cell

Bacteria being prokaryotic in nature are much simpler in comparison to the ‘animal cells’. In addition to this, they have three distinct characteristic features, namely : (a) an extensive endoplasmic reticulum* ; (b) essentially lack a membrane-bound nucleus ; and (c) mitochondria.

Nevertheless, bacteria do possess a rather complex surface structure having a rigid cell wall that surrounds the cytoplasmic membrane, as shown in Fig. 2.7, which essentially serves as the osmotic barrier as well as the ‘active transport’ necessarily needed so as to sustain and maintain a suitable intracellular concentration of the specific ions and the metabolites.

Infact, the bacterial cell wall has two major roles to play :

(a) to protect the cell against osmotic rupture particularly in diluted media, and also against certain possible mechanical damage(s), and

(b) to assign bacterial shapes, their subsequent major division into Gram positive and Gram negative microorganisms and their antigenic attributes.