title: Towards a comprehensive view of the bacterial cell wall.
abstract: Direct in vivo visualization, in full atomic detail, of the microbial cell wall and its stress-bearing structural architecture remains one of the prime challenges in microbiology. In the meantime, molecular modeling can provide a framework for explaining and predicting mechanisms involved in morphogenesis, bacterial cell growth and cell division, during which the wall and its major structural component--murein--have to protect the cell from osmotic pressure and multiple tensile forces. Here, we illustrate why the scaffold concept of murein architecture provides a more comprehensive representation of bacterial cell wall physiology than previous models.
authors.affiliation: N.F. Gamaleya Institute for Epidemiology and Microbiology, Gamaleya str. 18, Moscow 123098, Russia.
authors.forename: Boris
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Dmitriev
authors.forename: Filip
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Toukach
authors.forename: Stefan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ehlers
mesh_terms: D001419:Bacteria / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D018407:Bacterial Physiological Phenomena; D002473:Cell Wall / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000502:physiology* / Q000648:ultrastructure; D008954:Models, Biological; D010457:Peptidoglycan
chemical_list: D010457:Peptidoglycan