A slime layer in bacteria is an easily removed, diffuse, unorganized layer of extracellular material that surrounds bacteria cells. Specifically, this consists mostly of exopolysaccharides, glycoproteins, and glycolipids.
The slime layer is not to be confused with the S-layer, a separate and highly organised glycoprotein layer surrounding many bacterial cells.
The function of the slime layer is to protect the bacteria cells from environmental dangers such as antibiotics and desiccation. The slime layer also allows bacteria to adhere to smooth surfaces such as prosthetic medical devices and catheters. It may permit bacterial colonies to survive chemical sterilization with chlorine, iodine, and other chemicals, leaving autoclaving or flushing with boiling water as the only certain methods of decontamination.
A bacterial capsule is similar, but is a well ordered structure that is resistant to washing off.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Famous quotes containing the words slime and/or layer:
“Clean the spittoons.
The steam in hotel kitchens,
And the smoke in hotel lobbies,
And the slime in hotel spittoons:
Part of my life.”
—Langston Hughes (1902–1967)
“A revolution is not the overturning of a cart, a reshuffling in the cards of state. It is a process, a swelling, a new growth in the race. If it is real, not simply a trauma, it is another ring in the tree of history, layer upon layer of invisible tissue composing the evidence of a circle.”
—Kate Millett (b. 1934)