In article <1994Jan25.022915.29327 at martha.utcc.utk.edu> jrice at utkvx.utk.edu (James F Rice) writes:
> I am very interested in observing what everyone thinks of when they
>consider microbial development. What type of definition would be suitable for
>this term? What is the scope of the phase? This interest is partly a result
>of my own research and partly because of an advanced Microbiology course in
>which I am enrolled. In this course we are going to attempt to address the
>issue of Bacterial Development in regard to the physiology of microbes. Some
{specific examples of bacterial development deleted}
You have given the classic examples that most microbiolgists cite.
This is, of course, a prokaryotic bias. If the scope of the course
is somewhat broader, there a a huge number of interesting systems
among the fungi and related organisms. Much work has been done,
especially genetics, with Aspergillus conidial development (Bill
Timberlake is a good author for a start into the literature). There
is much work on the shift between yeast and mold forms in dimorphic
fungi such as mucor(Salmon Bartniki-Garcia is a good start). There
is a good literature on watermolds starting back in the 1940's.
This is one of my areas of interest. You might try looking up work
by Paul Horgan, Julie Silver, Neil Gow, G. Gooday and Brent Heath,
and Frank and Ruth Harold.
Well, I have obviously shown my eukarotic bias! Seriously, because
of the more extensive morphological changes in eukaryotic microbes
they have been well studied. Some have good genetic support,
others, like watermolds are a stinker to do genetics on but have
been really worked over with respect to hormones and physiology.
Happy hunting!
rpeter at nmsu.edu
in real life:
R. Peter Herman
Dept. of Biology
NM State Univ.
