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The Mechanical Properties of Bacteria and Why they Matter

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Physical Microbiology

Part of the book series: Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology ((AEMB,volume 1267))

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Abstract

I review recent techniques to measure the mechanical properties of bacterial cells and their subcellular components, and then discuss what these techniques have revealed about the constitutive mechanical properties of whole bacterial cells and subcellular material, as well as the molecular basis for these properties.

“It behooves us always to remember that in physics it has taken great scientists to discover simple things. They are very great names indeed which we couple with the explanation of the path of a stone, the droop of a chain, the tints of a bubble, the shadows in a cup. It is but the slightest adumbration of a dynamical morphology [of biological systems] that we can hope to have until the physicist and the mathematician shall have made these problems of ours their own.”

– D’arcy Thompson, On Growth and Form.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, New York University, New York, NY, USA

    Enrique R. Rojas

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  1. Enrique R. Rojas
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Correspondence to Enrique R. Rojas .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Pathogenesis of Vascular Infections, Institut Pasteur, Paris, France

    Guillaume Duménil

  2. Microbial Morphogenesis and Growth, Institut Pasteur, Paris, France

    Sven van Teeffelen

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Rojas, E.R. (2020). The Mechanical Properties of Bacteria and Why they Matter. In: Duménil, G., van Teeffelen, S. (eds) Physical Microbiology. Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology, vol 1267. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46886-6_1

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