Bacterial Wall

The bacterium, despite its simplicity, contains a well-developed cell structure which is responsible for some of its unique biological structures and pathogenicity. Many structural features are unique to bacteria and are not found among archaea or eukaryotes. Because of the simplicity of bacteria relative to larger organisms and the ease with which they can be manipulated experimentally, the cell structure of bacteria has been well studied, revealing many biochemical principles that have been subsequently applied to other organisms.

Cell morphology

Perhaps the most elemental structural property of bacteria is their morphology (shape). Typical examples include:
* coccus (circle or spherical)
* bacillus (rod-like)
* coccobacillus (between a sphere and a rod)
* spiral (elongated)
Cell shape is generally characteristic of a given bacterial species, but can vary depending on growth conditions. Some bacteria have complex life cycles involving the production of stalks and appendages (e.g. '' Caulobacter'') and some produce elaborate structures bearing reproductive spores (e.g. ''Myxococcus'', ''Streptomyces''). Bacteria generally form distinctive cell morphologies when examined by light microscopy and distinct colony morphologies when grown on Petri plates.

Perhaps the most obvious structural characteristic of bacteria is (with some exceptions) their small size. 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 μm³. 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, amounting to 0.2 pg. About half of the dry mass of a bacterial cell consists of carbon, and also about half of it can be attributed to proteins. Therefore, a typical fully grown 1-liter culture of ''Escherichia coli'' (at an optical density of 1.0, corresponding to c. 10⁹ cells/ml) yields about 1 g wet cell mass. Small size is extremely important because it allows for a large surface area-to-volume ratio which allows for rapid uptake and intracellular distribution of nutrients and excretion of wastes. At low surface area-to-volume ratios the diffusion of nutrients and waste products across the bacterial cell membrane limits the rate at which microbial metabolism can occur, making the cell less evolutionarily fit. The reason for the existence of large cells is unknown, although it is speculated that the increased cell volume is used primarily for storage of excess nutrients.

Comparison of a typical bacterial cell and a typical human cell (assuming both cells are spheres) :

Cell wall

The cell envelope is composed of the cell membrane and the cell wall. As in other organisms, the bacterial cell wall provides structural integrity to the cell. In prokaryotes, the primary function of the cell wall is to protect the cell from internal turgor pressure caused by the much higher concentrations of proteins, and other molecules inside the cell compared to its external environment. The bacterial cell wall differs from that of all other organisms by the presence of peptidoglycan which is located immediately outside of the cell membrane. Peptidoglycan is made up of a polysaccharide backbone consisting of alternating N-Acetylmuramic acid (NAM) and N-acetylglucosamine (NAG) residues in equal amounts. Peptidoglycan is responsible for the rigidity of the bacterial cell wall, and for the determination of cell shape. It is relatively porous and is not considered to be a permeability barrier for small substrates. While all bacterial cell walls (with a few exceptions such as extracellular parasites such as ''Mycoplasma'') contain peptidoglycan, not all cell walls have the same overall structures. Since the cell wall is required for bacterial survival, but is absent in some eukaryotes, several antibiotics (notably the penicillins and cephalosporins) stop bacterial infections by interfering with cell wall synthesis, while having no effects on human cells which have no cell wall, only a cell membrane. There are two main types of bacterial cell walls, those of gram-positive bacteria and those of gram-negative bacteria, which are differentiated by their Gram staining characteristics. For both these types of bacteria, particles of approximately 2 nm can pass through the peptidoglycan. If the bacterial cell wall is entirely removed, it is called a protoplast while if it's partially removed, it is called a spheroplast. Beta-lactam antibiotics such as penicillin inhibit the formation of peptidoglycan cross-links in the bacterial cell wall. The enzyme lysozyme, found in human tears, also digests the cell wall of bacteria and is the body's main defense against eye infections.

The gram-positive cell wall

Gram-positive cell walls are thick and the peptidoglycan (also known as ''murein'') layer constitutes almost 95% of the cell wall in some gram-positive bacteria and as little as 5-10% of the cell wall in gram-negative bacteria. The gram-positive bacteria take up the crystal violet dye and are stained purple. The cell wall of some gram-positive bacteria can be completely dissolved by lysozymes which attacks the bonds between N-acetylmuramic acid and N-acetylglucosamine. In other gram-positive bacteria, such as ''Staphylococcus aureus'', the walls are resistant to the action of lysozymes. They have O-acetyl groups on carbon-6 of some muramic acid residues.
The matrix substances in the walls of gram-positive bacteria may be polysaccharides or teichoic acids. The latter are very widespread, but have been found only in gram-positive bacteria. There are two main types of teichoic acid: ribitol teichoic acids and glycerol teichoic acids. The latter one is more widespread. These acids are polymers of ribitol phosphate and glycerol phosphate