Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, Arkansas 72205-7199, USA.
Annu Rev Microbiol. 2010;64:223-40. doi: 10.1146/annurev.micro.112408.134102.
Events in the past decade have made it both possible and interesting to ask how bacteria create cells of defined length, diameter, and morphology. The current consensus is that bacterial shape is determined by the coordinated activities of cytoskeleton complexes that drive cell elongation and division. Cell length is most easily explained by the timing of cell division, principally by regulating the activity of the FtsZ protein. However, the question of how cells establish and maintain a specific and uniform diameter is, by far, much more difficult to answer. Mutations associated with the elongation complex often alter cell width, though it is not clear how. Some evidence suggests that diameter is strongly influenced by events during cell division. In addition, surprising new observations show that the bacterial cell wall is more highly malleable than previously believed and that cells can alter and restore their shapes by relying only on internal mechanisms.
过去十年中的事件使得探讨细菌如何创造具有特定长度、直径和形态的细胞成为可能且具有趣味性。目前的共识是，细菌的形状是由驱动细胞伸长和分裂的细胞骨架复合物的协调活动决定的。细胞长度最容易通过细胞分裂的时间来解释，主要是通过调节 FtsZ 蛋白的活性。然而，细胞如何建立和维持特定且均匀的直径这一问题，到目前为止，要困难得多。与伸长复合物相关的突变通常会改变细胞的宽度，尽管其具体机制尚不清楚。一些证据表明，直径受到细胞分裂过程中事件的强烈影响。此外，令人惊讶的新观察结果表明，细菌细胞壁的可变形性比以前认为的要高得多，细胞仅依靠内部机制就可以改变和恢复其形状。
