Giants among the prokaryotes

Article Abstract:

A recent study showing that a giant symbiont called Epulopiscium fishelsoni is in fact a prokaryote brings doubt to the common notion that size is a distinguishing factor between a prokaryote and a eukaryote. Electron microscopy studies showed that these organisms possess bacterial-type nucleoids and flagella and have no surrounding membane. Standard cloning methods or polymerase chain reaction were used to propagate the organisms in the laboratory. This enabled the researchers to show that E.fishelsoni is related to low G+C Gram-positive bacteria and that it is indeed a prokaryote.

Identification and classification, Microbiology, Taxonomy (Biology)

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The largest bacterium

Article Abstract:

The microorganism Epulopiscium fishelsoni which occupy the intestines of surgeonfish is now considered to be the largest bacterium known so far. Electron microscropic techniques reveal that the structural morphology of this bacterium is more similar to bacteria than to eukaryotes. Phylogenetic analysis of ribosomal RNA reveal that the symbionts are related to the low-(G+C) Gram-positive group of bacteria.

Gram-positive bacteria

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The difference with prokaryotes

Article Abstract:

Proteins begin as chains of polypeptides and Netzer and Hartl have studied the differences in the folding pattern of nascent polypeptides in prokaryotic and eukaryotic cell cytoplasm. The basis for the study was that newly combined domains have to fold independently of one another, and it was found that protein domains, when synthesized from a eukaryotic ribosome, can fold sequentially and independently.

Research, Physiological aspects, Eukaryotic cells, Cells (Biology), Eukaryotes, Proteins

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