A square bacterium

@article{Walsby1980ASB,
  title={A square bacterium},
  author={A. E. Walsby},
  journal={Nature},
  year={1980},
  volume={283},
  pages={69-71}
}
I have come across a bacterium which has the form of a thin square sheet. In most bacteria such a shape would be precluded by the osmotically-generated internal hydrostatic pressure but this organism, found in a saturated brine pool, has little or no cell turgor pressure. Its shape is probably determined by the pattern in which the cell envelope particles assemble. These square bacteria are so thin and transparent and are so unlike any bacteria previously described that I would have overlooked… Expand
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191 Citations

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Walsby's square bacterium: fine structure of an orthogonal procaryote
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The "square" bacterium, first described by Walsby from brine collected at the Red Sea shore, was examined by electron microscopy and showed typical procaryote structure, with a regular cell wall and a gas vacuole fine structure similar to that of other halophilic procaryotes. Expand
Gas vesicles
The gas vesicle is a hollow structure made of protein. It usually has the form of a cylindrical tube closed by conical end caps. Gas vesicles occur in five phyla of the Bacteria and two groups of the… Expand
Ultrastructure of square bacteria from a brine pool in Southern Sinai
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Optical diffraction confirms the existence of both hexagonal and tetragonal arrangements of the cell wall subunits and also of different lattice constants and suggests a mixed population of bacteria. Expand
Archaea with square cells.
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  • Biology, Medicine
  • Trends in microbiology
  • 2005
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Genetic analysis shows that the squares, discovered 25 years ago on the Sinai Peninsula, are archaea rather than bacteria, and Paradoxically, the square archaea are the dominant microorganisms in some hypersaline environments and might be globally important. Expand
Crystalline Bacterial Cell Surface Layers
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Thecrystalline arrays of proteinaceous subunits forming surface layers reveal a broad-application potential in biotechnology, vaccine development and molecular nanotechnology. Expand
The Selective Value of Bacterial Shape
  • K. Young
  • Biology, Medicine
  • Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews
  • 2006
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The aim of this review is to spell out the physical, environmental, and biological forces that favor different bacterial morphologies and which, therefore, contribute to natural selection. Expand
Big bacteria.
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The most striking examples of competitive advantage from large cell size are found among the colorless sulfur bacteria that oxidize hydrogen sulfide to sulfate with oxygen or nitrate, which have become independent of the coexistence of their substrates. Expand
Can entropy save bacteria
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A physical biology approach to understanding organization and segregation of bacterial chromosomes using a "piston" analogy for bacterial chromosomes in a cell, which leads to a phase diagram for the organization of two athermal chains confined in a closed geometry characterized by two length scales. Expand
Viscoelasticity of the bacterial cell envelope
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Efforts to characterize the mechanical properties of the bacterial cell envelope are reviewed, and recent advances in measurement techniques for individual bacterial cells that have led to a more complete understanding are highlighted. Expand
Box-shaped halophilic bacteria
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Three morphologically similar strains of halophilic, box-shaped procaryotes have been isolated from brines collected in the Sinai, Baja California (Mexico), and southern California and contain pigments similar to bacteriorhodopsin which apparently mediate light-driven ion translocation and photophosphorylation. Expand
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