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17: Bacterial Growth and Energy Production

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    3384
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    • 17.1: Bacterial Growth
      Bacteria replicate by binary fission, a process by which one bacterium splits into two. Generation time is the time it takes for a population of bacteria to double in number. For many bacteria the generation time ranges from minutes to hours. Because of binary fission, bacteria increase their numbers by geometric progression whereby their population doubles every generation time. Par proteins function to separate bacterial chromosomes to opposite poles of the cell during bacterial cell division.
    • 17.2: Factors that Influence Bacterial Growth
      Bacteria have a minimum, optimum, and maximum temperature for growth and can be divided into 3 groups based on their optimum growth temperature: psychrophils, mesophils, thermophils, or hyperthermophils. Bacteria show variation in their requirements for gaseous oxygen and can be placed in one of the following groups: obligate aerobes, microaerophils, obligate anaerobes, aerotolerant anaerobes, or facultative anaerobes.
    • 17.3: Energy
      Energy is defined as the ability to do work. Organisms require energy for functions such as movement, active transport of nutrients into the cell, and the biosynthesis of cell components such as nucleotides, RNA, DNA, proteins, membranes. Energy is required to drive various biosynthetic chemical reactions and do mechanical work. All organisms can be placed into one of four groups based on their nutritional patterns: photoautotrophs, photoheterotrophs, chemoautotrophs, and chemoheterotrophs.
    • 17.4: Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP)
      Cellular energy is primarily trapped and stored in the form of adenosine triphosphate or ATP. A tremendous amount of ATP is needed for normal cellular growth. To trap energy released from exergonic catabolic chemical reactions, the cell uses some of that released energy to attach an inorganic phosphate group on to adenosine diphosphate (ADP) to make adenosine triphosphate (ATP). The energy is stored in these high-energy phosphate bonds.
    • 17.5: Phosphorylation Mechanisms for Generating ATP
      Depending on the type of organism, cells transfer energy and generate ATP by photophosphorylation, substrate-level phosphorylation, and/or oxidative phosphorylation. Phosphorylation refers to the attachment of a phosphate group to a molecule.
    • 17.6: The Flow of Energy in Nature
      As can be seen, the end products for aerobic respiration, carbon dioxide and water, are the reactants for photosynthesis while the end products of photosynthesis, glucose and oxygen, are the reactants for aerobic respiration. In other words, the nutrients are continuously recycled between the two processes. Energy, however, is not recycled but rather is converted from one form to another: from radiant energy to the chemical bond energy of glucose to the chemical bond energy of ATP.
    • 17.E: Bacterial Growth and Energy Production (Exercises)
      These are homework exercises to accompany Kaiser's "Microbiology" TextMap. Microbiology is the study of microorganisms, which are defined as any microscopic organism that comprises either a single cell (unicellular), cell clusters or no cell at all (acellular). This includes eukaryotes, such as fungi and protists, and prokaryotes. Viruses and prions, though not strictly classed as living organisms, are also studied.

    Thumbnail: Scanning electron microscope image of Vibrio cholerae bacteria, which infect the digestive system. (Public Domain; T.J. Kirn, M.J. Lafferty, C.M.P Sandoe and R.K. Taylor).


    This page titled 17: Bacterial Growth and Energy Production is shared under a CC BY 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Gary Kaiser via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform.