How big is a bacterial cell?

Answer 1

Bacteria, despite their simplicity, contain a well developed cell structure which is responsible for many of their unique biological properties. Many structural features are unique to bacteria and are not found among archaea or eukaryotes. Because of the simplicity of bacteria relative to larger organisms and the ease with which they can be manipulated experimentally, the cell structure of bacteria has been well studied, revealing many biochemical principles that have been subsequently applied to other organisms.

The word "bacterium"was probably used for the first time in the 1850s by Casimir Davaine who used the term to mean "rod"or "staff". There are three different basic forms of bacteria. Their role is normally related to diseases. There are the bacillus; which are rectangular with sharply rounded ends, which varies in diameter between 20 µm and 0.5 µm. The second type is a coccus; which resembles two tiny beans lying face to face. This type of bacteria is about 0.5 µm in diameter. The third kind is the spiral, which is about 15 µm in length.

Bacteria are both useful and harmful to humans. Some are used for soil enrichment with plants, in alcohol and cheese fermentation, to decompose organic wastes and clean up toxic waste sites, and in genetic engineering. Others, called pathogens, cause a number of plant and animal diseases including cholera, syphilis, typhoid fever and tetanus. Bacteria are so tiny that hundreds of thousands of them are able to fit into a space the size of the period at the end of a sentence.

The thousands of species of bacteria are differentiated by many factors, which includes morphology (the shape), chemical composition (usually detected by staining reactions), nutritional requirements, biochemical activities, and source of energy (sunlight or chemicals.)

Throughout all the sources I have found different average diameters, but it seems to be between 0.2 µm and 20 µm.

A micrometer, or one millionth of a meter, is a unit of length commonly used to measure objects like cells or the wavelengthof infrared radiation. The abbreviation used to designate a micrometer is µm, and the unit is also often referred to as a micron or micrometre. The limits of visual acuity for the human eye is often cited as objects 50 micrometers in diameter, about the size of a dust speck. The average width of a human hair is 80 micrometers.

The building blocks that make up every living thing, the cell, have sizes in the micrometer range. A typical bacterial cell has a width of 1-10 micrometers, while a red blood cell has a diameter between 6-8 micrometers. A strand of spiderweb has anaverage width of 4-5 micrometers. Typical eukaryotic (non-bacterial) cells have a diameter of 7 micrometers. The averageadult human body is made up of about 10 trillion cells, including 100 billion brain cells, or 1% of the total. In contrast, there are numerous organisms consisting of only one cell.

The wavelength of visible light lies right below the micrometer level. Visible light has wavelengths between about 380 nanometers and 740 nanometers. A nanometer is a thousandth of a micrometer.

Light with wavelengths in the micrometer range falls into the infrared portion of the spectrum. Infrared light carries heat energy, and is released by the Sun in all directions in large quantities. This frequency is invisible to most animals, the pitviper, rattlesnakes, vampire bat, jewel beetles, and certain darkly pigmented butterflies being important exceptions. The infrared portion of the spectrum contains wavelengths between 750 nanometers and 1 millimeter, spanning five orders of magnitude. Human beings radiate their own warmth at a wavelength of about 10 micrometers. This can be seen using night vision goggles.

Answer 2

smaller than a eukarya cell

The size of bactria is .5 to 2 micrometer(um).

Answer 3

The are in the range of about 5 micrometers to 1 micrometer.

Answer 4

more than ten times smaller than an egg cell which is about the size of a strand of a hair.

Answer 5

1x10-6m

Answer 6

.1 to 1 mum