1 Life and Cells • What is Life? – Can grow, i.e. increase in size. – Can reproduce. – Responsive to environment. –Metabolism: can acquire and utilize energy. • Schwann and Schleiden: cells basic unit of life –Prokaryotes and eukaryotes from microscopy. – Our focus: prokaryotic cells.
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1 Life and Cells What is Life? –Can grow, i.e. increase in size. –Can reproduce. –Responsive to environment. –Metabolism: can acquire and utilize energy.
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1Life and Cells
• What is Life?– Can grow, i.e. increase in size.– Can reproduce.– Responsive to environment.– Metabolism: can acquire and utilize energy.
• Schwann and Schleiden: cells basic unit of life– Prokaryotes and eukaryotes from microscopy.– Our focus: prokaryotic cells.
2Bacterial Appearance
• Size– 0.2 µm – 0.1 mm – Most 0.5 – 2.0 µm
•ShapeCoccus (cocci); rod (bacillus, bacilli); spiral shapes (spirochetes; spirillum, spirilla); filamentous; various odd shapes.
• Provides shape and structural support to cell• Resists damage due to osmotic pressure• Provides some degree of resistance to diffusion of
molecules• Single bag-like, seamless molecule• Composed of polysaccharide chains cross linked
with short chains of amino acids: “peptido” and “glycan”.
13Monomers of Peptidoglycan: NAG and NAM
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Peptidoglycan structure
152nd Law of Thermodynamics
•All things tend toward entropy (randomness).
•Molecules move (diffuse) from an area of high concentration to areas of low concentration.
•Eventually, molecules become randomly distributed unless acted on by something else.
16Osmosis
Yellow spots cannot move through membrane in middle. Water moves into compartment where spots are most concentrated, trying to dilute them, make concentration on both sides of the membrane the same.
In this example, gravity limits how much water can flow. In a bacterium, the peptidoglycan provides the limit.
• Movement of water across a semi permeable membrane.
• If the environment is:• Isotonic: No NET flow.• Hypertonic: Water flows OUT
of cell.• Hypotonic: Water flows IN.
• (water flows from where it is in high concentration to where it is in low concentration.)
18Bacteria and Osmotic pressure
• Bacteria typically face hypotonic environments– Insides of bacteria filled with proteins, salts, etc.– Water wants to rush in, explode cell.
• Peptidoglycan provides support– Limits expansion of cell membrane– Growth of bacteria and mechanism of penicillin
• Bacteria need different protection from hypertonic situations– Water leaves the cell; cell membrane shrinks– Lack of water causes precipitation of molecules, death
19Effect of osmotic pressure on cells
• Hypotonic: water rushes in; PG prevents cell rupture.
• Hypertonic:
water leaves cell, membrane pulls away from cell wall.
20PG synthesis
Penicillin interferes w/ enzymes attaching new pieces, but old PG is cut anyway…
Kablam.
21Teichoic Acids
• Polymers found in Gram + cell walls– Either ribitol or glycerol phosphate– Associated with PG
• Lipoteichoic acid attached to membrane
• Bind to cations? Help regulate autolysins?– No one knows!
22Cell Wall Exceptions
• Mycobacterium and relatives– Wall contains lots of waxy mycolic acids– Attached covalently to PG
• Mycoplasma: no cell wall– Parasites of animals, little osmotic stress
• Archaea, the 3rd domain– Pseudomurein and other chemically different wall