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Sizing up bacteria

Nature Physics volume 10, page 788 (2014)Cite this article

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Chances are you've never seen a bacterium with your naked eye. The largest physical dimension of a typical bacterium — the common rod-shaped E. coli, for example — is on the order of 1 μm, about 100 times smaller than the width of a human hair. We've all seen bacteria, but only with the aid of a microscope.

You may wonder — why aren't some bacteria a lot bigger? Well, there's a fairly obvious answer: the constraints of molecular physics mean that a bacterium as big as a mouse, or even a flea, shouldn't work. As simple organisms lacking internal transport mechanisms, bacteria rely on random molecular diffusion to move necessary proteins and metabolites around within the cell. That's okay on a scale of 1 μm; not so good for anything much bigger.

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  1. Mark Buchanan
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Buchanan, M. Sizing up bacteria. Nature Phys 10, 788 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys3149

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