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Bacteria: The First Microbes |
Chapter: 3
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A Bacteria Behemoth The discovery and characterization of Epulopiscium fisheloni, the world’s largest bacteria, has created a host of problems for microbiologists. First off, the behemoth size of the organism questions the surface-to-volume ratio necessary for the survival of cells and makes one wonder how nutrients can diffuse throughout the cytoplasm of such a huge bacterium without some level of organization. Then too, it has sent researchers back to the fossil record to reexamine those creatures thought too large to be bacteria, which also means that the ideas about evolution may have to be reevaluated. Moreover, the discovery flouts the scientific canon that all bacteria are microscopic. The organism was originally discovered in 1985 by Israeli researchers who found it in the intestinal tract of a common surgeonfish living in the Red Sea. They assumed it was a protozoan. Shortly thereafter, Kendall D. Clements of James Cook University in Queensland, Australia found the same organism in surgeonfish caught near the Great Barrier Reef. Unable to do a complete biochemical analysis of the organism, he sent it to the Indiana researchers who performed the DNA studies verifying that Epulopiscium is indeed a bacterium. With the realization that bacteria can grow beyond boundaries previously imagined, scientists are now asking what else is out there. Also, the search is on for some sort of internal bacterial scaffolding that could usher nutrients about the cytoplasm much as the endoplasmic reticulum does for eukaryotes. On a philosophical level, some microbiologists ask why a bacterium bothers swelling to such an immense size. To which, the response is "Why not?" |
