ReviewMicrobiology and molecular biology reviews : MMBR2006
The selective value of bacterial shape.
Review in Microbiology and molecular biology reviews : MMBR, 2006. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 422 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
422 citing papers in PubMed.
- Archaeal Cytoskeletal Protein CetZ1 Influences Assembly of the Motility Machinery.Molecular microbiology · 2026Article
- Altered regulation of septal peptidoglycan synthesis modulates β-lactam susceptibility in Pseudomonas aeruginosa.PLoS genetics · 2026Article
- Morphogenesis of bacterial colonies in liquid crystalline environments.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Comparative genomics and phenotypic divergence of ERIC I and ERIC II genotypes of Paenibacillus larvae, the causative agent of American Foulbrood disease.PLoS pathogens · 2026Article
- Cell geometry and membrane protein crowding constrain Escherichia coli growth rate, overflow metabolism, respiration, and maintenance energy.FEBS letters · 2026Article
- Article
- Wall teichoic acids regulate peptidoglycan synthesis to maintain rod shape in Bacillus subtilis.Nature microbiology · 2026Article
- Biofilm Characterization by AFM and SEM and Growth Kinetics ofMicroorganisms · 2026Article
- Virulence Associated Morphology of Different Strains of Melissococcus plutonius, a Brood Pathogen of Honey Bees.Environmental microbiology reports · 2026Article
- Conserved rod-to-spherical shape transitions in Escherichia coli through primordial experimental adaptations.Bioscience reports · 2026Article
- Dynamics of genetic circuits in Pseudomonas protegens.Cell systems · 2026Article
- Differential nitrogen assimilation byFrontiers in microbiology · 2026Article
- Water freeze-drying for high-resolution SEM: an accessible strategy for capturing native microorganism morphology without dedicated rapid-freezing systems.Frontiers in microbiology · 2026Article
- Artificial-intelligence-driven segmentation and analysis of microbial cells.Journal of biomedical optics · 2026Article
- Article
- Community matters: stress tolerance and survival ofFrontiers in microbiology · 2026Article
- Article
- Mycobacterium smegmatis Expands Across Surfaces by Hydraulic Sliding.Environmental microbiology reports · 2025Article
- Analysis of variations in cell envelope subproteome and cell length in Acinetobacter baumannii ATCC 19606International microbiology : the official journal of the Spanish Society for Microbiology · 2025Article
- Growth stage and interspecies interactions shape the cell biology and cell cycle characteristics of human gut bacteria Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron and Roseburia intestinalis.Communications biology · 2025Article
362 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
Abstract
Why do bacteria have shape? Is morphology valuable or just a trivial secondary characteristic? Why should bacteria have one shape instead of another? Three broad considerations suggest that bacterial shapes are not accidental but are biologically important: cells adopt uniform morphologies from among a wide variety of possibilities, some cells modify their shape as conditions demand, and morphology can be tracked through evolutionary lineages. All of these imply that shape is a selectable feature that aids survival. The aim of this review is to spell out the physical, environmental, and biological forces that favor different bacterial morphologies and which, therefore, contribute to natural selection. Specifically, cell shape is driven by eight general considerations: nutrient access, cell division and segregation, attachment to surfaces, passive dispersal, active motility, polar differentiation, the need to escape predators, and the advantages of cellular differentiation. Bacteria respond to these forces by performing a type of calculus, integrating over a number of environmental and behavioral factors to produce a size and shape that are optimal for the circumstances in which they live. Just as we are beginning to answer how bacteria create their shapes, it seems reasonable and essential that we expand our efforts to understand why they do so.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.