Planctomycetes
| Planctomycetes | |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Domain: | Bacteria |
| Phylum: |
Planctomycetes Garrity & Holt 2001 |
| Classes | |
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Planctomycetes are a phylum of aquatic bacteria and are found in samples of brackish, and marine and fresh water. They reproduce by budding. In structure, the organisms of this group are ovoid and have a holdfast, at the tip of a thin cylindrical extension from the cell body called the stalk, at the nonreproductive end that helps them to attach to each other during budding.
Cavalier-Smith has postulated that the Planctomycetes are within the clade Planctobacteria in the larger clade Gracilicutes, but this is not generally accepted.
For a long time bacteria belonging to this group were considered to lack peptidoglycan, (also called murein) in their cell walls, which is an important heteropolymer present in most bacterial cell walls that serves as a protective component. It was thought that instead their walls were made up of glycoprotein which is rich in glutamate. Recently, however, representatives of all three clades within the Planctomycetes were found to possess peptidoglycan containing cell walls.
Planctomycetes have a distinctive morphology with the appearance of membrane-bound internal compartments, often referred to as the paryphoplasm (ribosome-free space), pirellulosome (ribosome-containing space) and nucleoid (condensed nucleic acid region, in these species surrounded by a double membrane). Until the discovery of the Poribacteria, planctomycetes were the only bacteria known with these apparent internal compartments. Three-dimensional electron tomography reconstruction of a representative species, Gemmata obscuriglobus, has yielded varying interpretations of this observation. One 2013 study found the appearance of internal compartments to be due to a densely invaginated but continuous single membrane, concluding that only the two compartments typical of Gram-negative bacteria - the cytoplasm and periplasm - are present. However, the excess membrane triples the surface area of the cell relative to its volume, which may be related to Gemmata's sterol biosynthesis abilities. A 2014 study using similar methods reported confirmation of the earlier enclosed compartment hypothesis.
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