Ultrastructural studies on the bacterium associated with the ratoon stunting disease of sugarcane

1977 ◽  
Vol 28 (5) ◽  
pp. 843 ◽  
Author(s):  
L Weaver ◽  
DS Teakle ◽  
AC Hayward

The bacterium associated with ratoon stunting disease of sugar-cane was studied in thin sections of agar-embedded pellets of fibrovascular extracts, and in situ in the xylem of sugar-cane. The bacterium often possessed a single large lamellar mesosome, and the cell wall was smooth in outline and of the Gram-positive type. It lacked the acidic mucopolysaccharide capsule which was observed in several species of plant pathogenic coryneform bacteria. The bacterium was seen in the lumen and the pits of the xylem vessels and sometimes appeared to be in the xylem cell wall.

1973 ◽  
Vol 24 (6) ◽  
pp. 869 ◽  
Author(s):  
DS Teakle ◽  
PM Smith ◽  
DRL Steindl

When fibrovascular sap extracts of sugar-cane plants affected by the ratoon stunting disease (RSD) were centrifuged and the resuspended pellets negatively stained and examined in an electron microscope, cells of a small bacterium were always observed. The bacterium could be distinguished readily from other bacteria present by its small size (usually 1.0–2.5 µm long by 0.15–0.32 µm wide), the coryneform (club-shaped) morphology of some cells, and its permeability to negative stain revealing a thin cell wall surrounding a cytoplasmic membrane and coiled mesosomes. Since the small bacterium was never observed in fibrovascular extracts of RSD-free sugar-cane plants, it is a possible causal agent of RSD.


Author(s):  
E.L. Buhle ◽  
A.V. Somlyo ◽  
A.P. Somlyo

Early ultrastructural studies of smooth muscle are consistent with the sliding filament mechanism of contraction. Myosin filaments are stable structures in situ and can be found in both relaxed and contracted muscle. Actin filaments can be decorated with SI subfragments of myosin to show a polarity similar to the Z-lines of skeletal muscle. The work presented here is a comparison of isolated thick filaments from relaxed chick amnion with thick filaments obtained in situ from longitudinal thin sections (∽50nm thick) of rabbit portal vein in rigor.


1966 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 1125-1136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alice Reyn ◽  
A. Birch-Andersen ◽  
S. P. Lapage

The line structure of Haemophilus vaginalis (Gardner and Dukes 1955) was compared with that of four, possibly related species (Butyribacterium rettgeri, Corynebacterium diphtheriae var. mitis, Lactobacillus acidophilus, Haemophilus influenzae) and an unrelated species, Neisseria haemolysans, which had shown a similar degree of Gram-variability as that of H. vaginalis. Although H. vaginalis was first described as a Gram-negative rod, its fine structure, particularly that of cell wall and septa, was more like that of Gram-positive organisms. Also N. haemolysans had a fine structure close to that of Gram-positive organisms, and its typical Gram-positive cell wall varied in. thickness from one cell to another.The study did not solve the problem of the classification of the so-called H. vaginalis, but the appearance of the few strains studied in the electron microscope suggests that it: should be included in Corynebacterium or Butyribacterium rather than in Lactobacillus.


1972 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 328-354 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wayne Hohman ◽  
Harald Schraer

Low temperature ultramicroincineration was employed to determine the morphological localization of "structure-bound" mineral and/or metallic elements within biological cells at the electron microscope level. This technique chemically removes organic material from thin sections of tissues with reactive, excited oxygen instead of heat as used in a furnace. The remaining ash representing the mineral/metallic ultrastructure of cells is advantageous for ultrastructural studies because incineration without applying heat is less destructive than the burning associated with high temperatures. This low temperature incineration method was applied to thin-sectioned avian shell gland mucosa, a calcium transporting system, as a sample tissue. The results include: recognition of many subcellular organelles in the ash patterns, identification of dense, ash-containing granules (possibly organic-metallic complexes) in epithelial cells which may be involved in calcium transport, description of ashed erythrocytes and collagen, comparison of ashed glutaraldehyde fixed tissue with and without osmium postfixation, description of lead-stained cells after ashing, demonstration that ash preservation is dependent upon section thickness, illustration of the fine resolution obtainable because the ash residues remain relatively near their in situ origins, discussion of technical problems in this relatively new field, and demonstration of the presence of Ca and P in the ash with electron microprobe X-ray analysis.


1975 ◽  
Vol 21 (11) ◽  
pp. 1815-1826 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas H. MacRae ◽  
Howard D. McCurdy

Electron microscopy of sectioned, chemically fixed Chondromyces crocatus revealed a microorganism with a typical gram-negative cell envelope. The cytoplasm contained, in addition to tubules and two types of granules, a membrane-associated structure (MAS) that, although less extensive, bears some resemblance to polar membranes observed in flagellated bacteria. Examination of swarming cells negatively stained in situ, as well as thin sections, established that cell division occurs by septum formation and that well-defined mesosomes are associated with the process. Polar pili and a compact, amorphous slime layer surrounding the cells were evident in shadowed preparations of in situ cells. The slime layer and pili, by providing cell-to-cell interconnections, may influence the organized gliding movement characteristic of C. crocatus and other myxobacteria.


1993 ◽  
Vol 39 (10) ◽  
pp. 912-921 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. B. Hespell ◽  
K. Kato ◽  
J. W. Costerton

Most Butyrivibrio strains have been isolated from the gastrointestinal tract of animals and have been classified as Butyrivibrio fibrisolvens. A few strains isolated from human feces are designated as Butyrivibrio crossatus, the other species in this genus. Butyrivibrio fibrisolvens strains are anaerobic, curved rods that produce butyrate, but numerous studies have shown that these strains display considerable variations in phenotypic properties and heterogeneity in DNA relatedness. Although over 60 strains have been characterized in these respects, the cell wall structure of only a few strains has been studied. In this study, cell wall related properties of 12 strains representative of five DNA relatedness groups were examined. All strains were very sensitive to penicillin and other antibiotics that interfere with cell wall synthesis. Although an occasional resistant strain was found, most strains were sensitive to a variety of protein synthesis antibiotics that included aminoglycosides and tetracycline. In contrast, all strains were highly resistant to nalidixic acid. Peptidoglycans were isolated from seven B. fibrisolvens strains and Lachnospira multiparus. Compositional analyses indicated molar ratios of 0.7:2:2:1:0.8 for muramic acid, glucosamine, alanine, glutamic acid, and diaminopimelic acid, respectively, in all peptidoglycans, which also showed a low degree of cross-linking. A trichloroacetic acid extractable galactosamine-containing polysaccharide copurified with the Butyrivibrio peptidoglycans. Electron microscopy of thin sections showed all strains to possess a Gram-positive type of cell wall that was atypically thin (12–18 nm). Most strains also displayed external (surface) polysaccharide layers. Cytoplasmic inclusions and granules were evident in many strains and were composed of polysaccharides, on the basis of cell composition analyses. The findings that Butyrivibrio strains have overall similarities in cell wall properties, but differences in DNA relatedness, suggest that these organisms should be classified as several more species in the same genus or family.Key words: Butyrivibrio fibrisolvens, Butyrivibrio crossatus, cell wall, peptidoglycan, ruminal bacteria.


1998 ◽  
Vol 64 (8) ◽  
pp. 3059-3062 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Bidnenko ◽  
Carine Mercier ◽  
Josselyne Tremblay ◽  
Patrick Tailliez ◽  
Saulius Kulakauskas

ABSTRACT Fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) is now a widely used method for identification of bacteria at the single-cell level. With gram-positive bacteria, the thick peptidoglycan layer of a cell wall presents a barrier for entry of horseradish peroxidase (HRP)-labeled probes. Therefore, such probes do not give any signal in FISH unless cells are first treated with enzymes which hydrolyze the peptidoglycan. We explored this feature of FISH to detect cells which have undergone permeabilization due to expression of autolytic enzymes. Our results indicate that FISH performed with HRP-labeled probes provides a sensitive method to estimate the states of cell walls of individual gram-positive bacteria.


1997 ◽  
Vol 161 ◽  
pp. 491-504 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frances Westall

AbstractThe oldest cell-like structures on Earth are preserved in silicified lagoonal, shallow sea or hydrothermal sediments, such as some Archean formations in Western Australia and South Africa. Previous studies concentrated on the search for organic fossils in Archean rocks. Observations of silicified bacteria (as silica minerals) are scarce for both the Precambrian and the Phanerozoic, but reports of mineral bacteria finds, in general, are increasing. The problems associated with the identification of authentic fossil bacteria and, if possible, closer identification of bacteria type can, in part, be overcome by experimental fossilisation studies. These have shown that not all bacteria fossilise in the same way and, indeed, some seem to be very resistent to fossilisation. This paper deals with a transmission electron microscope investigation of the silicification of four species of bacteria commonly found in the environment. The Gram positiveBacillus laterosporusand its spore produced a robust, durable crust upon silicification, whereas the Gram negativePseudomonas fluorescens, Ps. vesicularis, andPs. acidovoranspresented delicately preserved walls. The greater amount of peptidoglycan, containing abundant metal cation binding sites, in the cell wall of the Gram positive bacterium, probably accounts for the difference in the mode of fossilisation. The Gram positive bacteria are, therefore, probably most likely to be preserved in the terrestrial and extraterrestrial rock record.


Author(s):  
B.K. Ghosh

Periplasm of bacteria is the space outside the permeability barrier of plasma membrane but enclosed by the cell wall. The contents of this special milieu exterior could be regulated by the plasma membrane from the internal, and by the cell wall from the external environment of the cell. Unlike the gram-negative organism, the presence of this space in gram-positive bacteria is still controversial because it cannot be clearly demonstrated. We have shown the importance of some periplasmic bodies in the secretion of penicillinase from Bacillus licheniformis.In negatively stained specimens prepared by a modified technique (Figs. 1 and 2), periplasmic space (PS) contained two kinds of structures: (i) fibrils (F, 100 Å) running perpendicular to the cell wall from the protoplast and (ii) an array of vesicles of various sizes (V), which seem to have evaginated from the protoplast.


Author(s):  
D. Reis ◽  
B. Vian ◽  
J. C. Roland

Wall morphogenesis in higher plants is a problem still open to controversy. Until now the possibility of a transmembrane control and the involvement of microtubules were mostly envisaged. Self-assembly processes have been observed in the case of walls of Chlamydomonas and bacteria. Spontaneous gelling interactions between xanthan and galactomannan from Ceratonia have been analyzed very recently. The present work provides indications that some processes of spontaneous aggregation could occur in higher plants during the formation and expansion of cell wall.Observations were performed on hypocotyl of mung bean (Phaseolus aureus) for which growth characteristics and wall composition have been previously defined.In situ, the walls of actively growing cells (primary walls) show an ordered three-dimensional organization (fig. 1). The wall is typically polylamellate with multifibrillar layers alternately transverse and longitudinal. Between these layers intermediate strata exist in which the orientation of microfibrils progressively rotates. Thus a progressive change in the morphogenetic activity occurs.


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