During the past 40 years, the importance of the microbial cell surface in biology, medicine, industry, and ecology has been increasingly recognized. Because they constitute the frontier between the cells and their environment, microbial cell walls play several key functions: supporting the internal turgor pressure of the cell, protecting the cytoplasm from the outer environment, imparting shape to the organism, acting as a molecular sieve, controlling molecular recognition and cell adhesion, and being the target of antibiotics. These functions have major consequences in biotechnology (wastewater treatment, bioremediation, and immobilized cells in reactors), industrial systems (biofouling and contamination) and medicine (interactions of pathogens with animal host tissues, accumulation on implants and prosthetic devices). This emphasizes the need to develop new techniques for probing the structure, properties and interactions of microbial surfaces. Traditionally, probing of the cell surface architecture relies on transmission and scanning electron microscopy techniques. The present book is a concise and up-to-date work including all aspects of this subject. Every effort has been made in the representation manner in this book so that the students do not get confused while going through this book.
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