From time to time, I will list review articles that I found inspiring and enlightening. To start with, I greatly enjoyed the following:
Kevin D. Young. 2006. The Selective Value of Bacterial Shape. Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews 70 (3): 660-703.
http://mmbr.asm.org/cgi/content/full/70/3/660
To quote from the first paragraph:
To be brutally honest, few people care that bacteria have different shapes. Which is a shame, because the bacteria seem to care very much. A simple way to verify this is to take a leisurely stroll through Bergey's Manual of Determinative Bacteriology or The Prokaryotes, pausing to admire the surprising and bewildering riot of shapes, sizes, and aggregates, some of which are illustrated in Fig. 1.
Figure 1. For the legend, refer to the paper.
I love your blog-- its so fabulous! Thank you!
Posted by: Lizzy | May 08, 2007 at 10:31 AM
It's a shame no one has commented on this yet. This is a terrific and interesting review. The issue of shape is avoided by many of us, because we don't know how to approach things that can't be broken down into regulatory pathways or biochemical pathways. Environmental responses are becoming clearer, and the discovery of some dedicated second messenger systems (c-di-GMP, for example) is making the connection between environment, genes, and physiology clearer.
I think shape is crucially interesting, and am trying in my own way to understand it a bit. A somewhat neglected area (I say somewhat because I know there are very smart, hardworking people out there trying to understand it, but perhaps not yet a critical mass?) that is worth understanding better.
One issue that pops up; how do we go beyond cataloging shapes and identifying possible utility to actually understanding how shape effects fitness in a given environment? The traditional methods of genetic manipulation are difficult (not impossible) to apply.
Posted by: Paul Orwin | May 04, 2007 at 09:01 AM