Biology

Dr M Srinivasan
Department of Life Science
NIT, Rourkela
Cell Shape

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Cell Shape
• Shape is related to their function
• Some cells have dynamic shape
• The cells may be spherical, oval, rounded or
elongated, cuboidal, cylindrical, tubular, polygonal,
plate-like, discoidal or irregular
• Factors controlling cell shape
• Surface tension and viscosity of the protoplasm
• Mutual pressure of the surrounding cells
• Rigidity of the cell membrane
• Internal environment and function of the cell
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Cell Size

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Cells classification

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 , Histone

, aerobic

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Prokaryotes to eukaryotes
evolution
• Scientists believe that prokaryotic cells (in the form of bacteria) were the first life

forms on earth. They are considered “primative” and originated 3.5 billion years ago.

That is 2 billion years before eukaryotic cells and billions of years before our earliest

ancestor, the hominids.

• 4.6 billion years ago – Earth was formed

• 3.5 billion years ago – the first life arose: prokaryotic bacteria

• 1.5 billion years ago – eukaryotic cells arose

• 500 million years ago – multi-celled eukaryotes arose

• 3 million years ago – our earliest ancestor, the hominids, appeared

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Classification of
prokaryotes
• Bergey's Manual of Determinative Bacteriology (1994)
• Morphology (rods, cocci, etc.)
• Gram stain
• Motility, structural features (e.g. spores, filaments, sheaths, appendages,
etc.)
• Physiological features (e.g. photosynthesis, anaerobiasis,
methanogenesis, lithotrophy, etc.).

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Classification of
prokaryotes – Morphology

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Classification of prokaryotes –
Cell wall (Grams stain)

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Classification of prokaryotes –
Respiration (Oxygen requirement )

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Classification of
prokaryotes – Nutrition

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Classification of
prokaryotes – 16srRNA
• The three-domain system is
a biological classification
introduced by Carl Woese et
al. in 1977.
• Woese argued that, on the
basis of differences in 16S
rRNA genes, these two
groups (Eubacteria (now
Bacteria) and Archaebacteria
(now Archaea)) and the
eukaryotes each arose
separately from an ancestor
with poorly developed
genetic machinery, often
called a progenote.

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Archaea
• In addition to the unifying archaeal features that distinguish them
from Bacteria (i.e., no murein in cell wall, ether-linked membrane
lipids, etc.)
• Archaea exhibit other unique structural or biochemical attributes
which adapt them to their particular habitats.
• The Crenarchaeota consist mainly of hyperthermophilic sulfur-
dependent prokaryotes
• Euryarchaeota contains the methanogens and extreme
halophiles.
• ssrRNAs of the Korarchaeota have been obtained from
hyperthermophilic environments similar to those inhabited by
Crenarchaeota

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Classification of Archaea
Based on their physiology, the Archaea can be
organized into three types:
1. Methanogens (prokaryotes that produce
methane)
2. Extreme halophiles (prokaryotes that live at
very high concentrations of salt (NaCl)
3. Extreme thermophiles (prokaryotes that live at
very high temperatures)

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Classification of Archaea –
methanogens

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Classification of Archaea –
methanogens
• Obligate anaerobes - will not tolerate even brief exposure to air (O2)
• Anaerobic environments - include marine and fresh-water sediments,
bogs and deep soils, intestinal tracts of animals, and sewage treatment
facilities.
• Metabolism - Methanogens have an incredible type of metabolism that
can use H2 as an energy source and CO2 as a carbon source for growth.
• In the process of making cell material from H2 and CO2, the
methanogens produce methane (CH4) in a unique energy-generating
process.
• The end product (methane gas) accumulates in their environment.
• Methanogens are normal inhabitants of the rumen (fore-stomach) of
cows and other ruminant animals.
• A cow belches about 50 liters of methane a day during the process of
eructation (chewing the cud).
• Methane is a significant greenhouse gas and is accumulating in the
atmosphere at an alarming rate.
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Classification of Archaea –
Extreme Halophiles
• Live in natural environments such as the Dead Sea, the Great Salt
Lake, or evaporating ponds of seawater where the salt
concentration is very high (as high as 5 Molar or 25 percent NaCl)

Owens lake, CA
Salterns
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Classification of Archaea –
Extreme Halophiles
• The organisms require salt for growth and will not grow at low salt
concentrations
• Their cell walls, ribosomes, and enzymes are stabilized by Na+
• Halobacterium halobium, (Great Salt Lake), adapts to the high-salt
environment by the development of "purple membrane", formed by
patches of light-harvesting pigment in the plasma membrane
• The high concentration of NaCl in their environment limits the availability
of O2 for respiration so they are able to supplement their ATP-producing
capacity by converting light energy into ATP using bacteriorhodopsin
• The pigment is a type of rhodopsin called bacteriorhodopsin which
reacts with light in a way that forms a proton gradient on the membrane
allowing the synthesis of ATP
• This is the only example in nature of non photosynthetic
photophosphorylation The organisms are heterotrophs that normally
respire by aerobic means

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Classification of Archaea –
Thermophiles
• very high temperature (800C to 1050C) for growth
• Their membranes and enzymes are unusually stable at
high temperatures

Hot spring, Yellowstone NP

Hydrothermal vent

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Classification of Archaea –
Thermophiles
• Hot, sulfur-rich environments usually associated with volcanism, such as hot
springs, geysers and fumaroles in Yellowstone National Park and elsewhere,
and thermal vents ("smokers") and cracks in the ocean floor
• Sulfolobus was the first hyperthermophilic Archaean discovered by Thomas D.
Brock of the University of Wisconsin in 1970
• His discovery, along with that of Thermus aquaticus (a thermophilic bacterium)
in Yellowstone National Park, launched the field of hyperthermophile biology
• Thermus aquaticus is the source of the enzyme taq polymerase used in the
polymerase chain reaction, PCR
• The bacterium has an optimum temperature for growth of 70 deg C
• Sulfolobus grows in sulfur-rich, hot acid springs at temperatures as high as 90
deg C

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Classification of Archaea –
Korarcheaota
• The least evolved lineages of modern life that has been detected
in nature so far
• The group has been subsequently defined only by 16S ribosomal
RNA sequences obtained from a variety of marine and terrestrial
hydrothermal environments
• To date, there are no representatives of the Korarchaeota in pure
culture, and nothing is known about their properties.

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Ultrastructure of
Prokaryotes
• Shape Different Types
• Size a. Eubacteria

• Nutrition b. Actinomycetes

• Common feature c. Mycoplasma

• Cell wall – Peptidoglycans d. Myxobacteria
• Plasma membrane – Lipid bilayers
• Reproduction – Fission e. Chlamydiae

• Nutritional type f. Rickettsiae

• Oxygen requirement
g. Cyanobacteria

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Ultrastructure of
Prokaryotes

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Ultrastructure of
Prokaryotes (Eubacteria)

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Cell envelope
• Plasma membrane
• Cell wall
• Capsule/slime

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Capsule/glycocalyx
• Gelatinous substance made of polysaccharide
or polypeptide or both
• When the amorphous viscid secretion (that
makes up the capsule) diffuses into the
surrounding medium and remains as a loose
undemarcated secretion, it is known as slime
layer
• Found in both gram positive and negative
bacteria
• Function
• Attachment to surface
• Protection against phagocytic engulfment, killing
or digestion
• Protection against desiccation
• Virulence factor
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Capsule/glycocalyx
• They also exclude bacterial viruses and most
hydrophobic toxic materials such as detergents
• There are 14 different capsule types, which each
impart their own specific antigenicity

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Cell envelope – Cell Wall

• Internal turgor pressure

• Porous in nature, small molecules can pass easily
• Rigid and provide shape to bacteria
• Peptidoglycan - poly-N-acetylglucosamine and
N-acetylmuramic acid

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 Cell envelope –Cell/Plasma
Membrane

Fluid mosaic model

Singer and Nicolson (1972)

• Function Enclosed cytoplasm – constant and highly organized state

• Interacts with environment
• Transportation – Selective transportation of molecules (ions and organic
molecules
• Respiration, Photosynthesis, synthesis of lipids and cell wall components

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Cell envelope – Mesosome
• These are folded invaginations in the plasma
membrane of bacteria.

• These may be tubular, flattened disc-like or curved.

• They contain enzymes of electron-transport system.

• Function - respiration, secretion, synthesis of material

for cell wall and separation and distribution of
chromosomes to daughter cells

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Extracellular structures -
Pili
• These are protein tubes that extend out from the outer
membrane in many members of the bacteria

• They are generally short to medium in length and present on

the bacterial cell surface in low numbers

• A few organisms (e.g. Myxococcus) use pilus for motility

• They are involved in the process of bacterial conjugation

where they are called conjugation pili or "sex pili“

• Type IV pili (non-sex pili) also aid bacteria in gripping surfaces

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Extracellular structures –
Flagella
• Perhaps the most recognizable extracellular bacterial cell
structures are flagella

• Flagella are whip-like structures protruding from the bacterial cell

wall and are responsible for bacterial motility (i.e. movement)

• The arrangement of flagella about the bacterial cell is unique to

the species

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Extracellular structures –
Flagella

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Cytoplasm
• The fluid and all its dissolved or suspended particles is called
the cytoplasm of the cell

• Cytosol is the water-like fluid found in bacterial cells

• The cytosol contains all the other internal compounds and

components the bacteria needs for survival

• Proteins, amino acids, sugars, nucleotides, salts, vitamins,

enzymes, DNA, ribosomes, and internal bacterial structures all
float around the cell in the cytoplasm

• All of these components are vital to the life of the cell and are
contained by the cell membrane
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Cytoplasm – Genome and
Plasmid
• Non enclosed by membrane
• This means that the transfer of cellular information
through the processes of translation, transcription and
DNA replication all occur within the same compartment
and can interact with other cytoplasmic structures like
ribosomes
• Circular double stranded DNA
• Exception few bacteria where linear Double stranded
DNA (e.g. Borrelia burgdorferi)

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Cytoplasm – Genome and
Plasmid

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Cytoplasm – Genome and
Plasmid

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Cytoplasm – Genome and
Plasmid
• Small independent pieces of DNA called plasmids that
often encode for traits that are advantageous but not
essential to their bacterial host (extra-chromosomal
DNA)
• Plasmids can be easily gained or lost by a bacterium
and can be transferred between bacteria as a form of
horizontal gene transfer

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Cytoplasm – Genome and
Plasmid
• There are two types of plasmid
integration into a host bacteria: Non-
integrating plasmids replicate as with
the top instance, whereas episomes,
the lower example, integrate into the
host chromosome
• F plasmid: These are also called sex factors.
The bacterial cell having this plasmid is
called F+ or donor cells and other one not
having it is F- or recipient cell. This plasmid
initiates conjugation between F- and F+
bacteria
• R plasmid: This plasmid contains genes that
provide resistance to bacterial cells against
antibiotics
• Col Factors: The presence of this plasmid
makes bacteria to secrete colicins which
are antibiotics
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Cytoplasm – Ribosomes
• The most numerous intracellular structure is the ribosome
• Site of protein synthesis in all living organisms
• Polyribosomes – chains of ribosomes on RNA

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Eukaryotes
• Membrane bound nucleus
• Chromosomes made of DNA and histone
• Membrane bound organelles suspended in
cytoplasm
• Cytoplasm has cytoskeleton network
• Mitosis and Meiosis
• Genetic recombination

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Eukaryotes

Kingdom

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Eukaryotes – Protista
• Protista are simple
• Predominately unicellular eukaryotic organisms or
colony of cells
• Protists live in water, in moist terrestrial habitats, and as
parasites and other symbionts in the bodies of multicellular
eukaroytes.

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Eukaryotes – Fungi
• Unicellular and multicellular
• The cells have cell walls but are not organized into
tissues
• They do not carry out photosynthesis and obtain
nutrients through absorption. E.g. include sac fungi,
club fungi and yeast

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Eukaryotes – Plantae
• Plants are multicellular organisms composed of
eukaryotic cells
• The cells are organized into tissues and have
cell walls
• They obtain nutrients by photosynthesis and
absorption
• Examples include mosses, ferns, conifers, and
flowering plants

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Eukaryotes – Animalia
• Animals are multicellular organisms composed
of eukaryotic cells
• The cells are organized into tissues and lack
cell walls
• They do not carry out photosynthesis and
obtain nutrients primarily by ingestion
Examples include sponges, worms, insects,
and vertebrates.

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Classification of animals
• Animal Kingdom is characterized by multicellular, eukaryotic
organisms

• Their cells lack cell walls

• They ingest and digest food (holozoic), hence they are

heterotrophic

• Higher forms show elaborate sensory and neuromotor systems

• Majority of them are motile

• Reproduction is mostly sexual and embryological development is

present in them
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Classification of animals

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Basis of classification
• Though different animals differ in their form and
structure, there are some fundamental
similarities in them such as arrangement of
• Cellular level organization
• Body symmetry
• Nature of coelom
• Diploblastic or triploblastic nature of the body
wall
• Segmentation

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 Cellular level organization
• Cells - the cells of the body form loose aggregates.
Sponges
• Tissue - cells of the animal carrying out the same
function are arranged in tissues. Jelly fish
(Coelenterates)
• Organs - tissue are grouped together to form organs,
each specialized for a particular function
(Platyhelminthes)

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Body symmetry

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Nature of coelom

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Body wall

Coelenterates Platyhelminthes to Chordates

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