Abstract
Unlike animal cells, bacteria have no cytoskeleton. Shape maintenance and, to some extent, cell-cycle regulation are governed by the cell wall. The walls of many rod-shaped bacteria are continuously added to on the inside surface, at the cytoplasmic membrane, and continuously depleted at the outer surface by the action of autolytic enzymes. The walls are stretched longitudinally as the cells grow, but the cell diameter and wall thickness remain remarkably constant during normal growth (Trueba and Woldringh, 1980). This also is a regulatory problem, but one that depends heavily on mechanical behaviour.
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© 1994 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Thwaites, J.J. (1994). A Mechanical Model For Growth And Control of the Cell Wall of Rod-shaped Bacteria. In: Akkaş, N. (eds) Biomechanics of Active Movement and Division of Cells. NATO ASI Series, vol 84. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-78975-5_23
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-78975-5_23
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
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