Abstract
Biochemical research, particularly over the past 50 years or so, has revealed ever more clearly the underlying unity of living processes. And this possibly has obscured to some extent the fact that there are nevertheless important physiological differences between microbial cells and, say, the cells of higher animals. One of the most fundamental of these, and one which undoubtedly has considerable evolutionary significance, is evident in the ways in which the different cells accommodate to environmental change. Clearly, the cells of higher animals have evolved to spend the whole of their existence in a closely regulated environment, and this is a condition of life for them. But microbial cells are markedly different. They generally are exposed to environments that fluctuate extensively (and often rapidly) and, being free-living creatures, they do not possess the capacity to regulate their surroundings. Instead, they respond to environmental change by changing themselves — structurally and functionally — and seemingly have acquired in the course of evolution a whole armoury of sophisticated control mechanisms whereby to effect such change.
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Tempest, D.W., Neijssel, O.M. (1981). Metabolic Compromises Involved in the Growth of Microorganisms in Nutrient-Limited (Chemostat) Environments. In: Hollaender, A., Rabson, R., Rogers, P., Pietro, A.S., Valentine, R., Wolfe, R. (eds) Trends in the Biology of Fermentations for Fuels and Chemicals. Basic Life Sciences. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-3980-9_20
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