Cell wall composition of thermophils in relation to the temperature of growth: A report of practical work presented for the degree B.Sc. (Hons) in Biochemistry in the University of Canterbury, Lincoln College Canterbury, New Zealand

Abstract

The study of microbial cell structure has had quite a long history; in fact Antonie van Leeuwenhoek one of the first people to investigate micro-organisms recorded that he could not identify any "film" that held the cells together. Scientific methods have however been considerably improved in three hundred years and now the gross bacterial anatomy has been shown to include a rigid cell wall, overlying the cytoplasmic membrane, and in many cases another layer of material, the capsule, surrounding the cell wall.