OG emphasizes Chapter 4 fo any valuable traordinarily complex.interesting in their own right and promi ent members of the ecosystem (figure 4.1).In addition,fung .and (a Prescott−Harley−Klein: Microbiology, Fifth Edition I. Introduction to Microbiology 4. Eucaryotic Cell Structure and Function © The McGraw−Hill Companies, 2002 (and to some extent, algae) are exceptionally useful in industrial microbiology. Many fungi and protozoa are also major human pathogens; one only need think of either malaria or African sleeping sickness (see chapter opener) to appreciate the signifi￾cance of eucaryotes in pathogenic microbiology. So, although this text emphasizes bacteria, eucaryotic microorganisms are discussed at many points. Chapter 4 focuses on eucaryotic cell structure and its rela￾tionship to cell function. Because many valuable studies on eu￾caryotic cell ultrastructure have used organisms other than mi￾croorganisms, some work on nonmicrobial cells is presented. At the end of the chapter, procaryotic and eucaryotic cells are com￾pared in some depth. 4.1 An Overview of Eucaryotic Cell Structure 75 The key to every biological problem must finally be sought in the cell. —E. B.Wilson I n chapter 3 considerable attention is devoted to procaryotic cell structure and function because bacteria are immensely important in microbiology and have occupied a large por￾tion of microbiologists’ attention in the past. Nevertheless, eu￾caryotic algae, fungi, and protozoa also are microorganisms and have been extensively studied. These organisms often are ex￾traordinarily complex, interesting in their own right, and promi￾nent members of the ecosystem (figure 4.1). In addition, fungi Figure 4.1 Representative Examples of Eucaryotic Microorganisms. (a) Paramecium as seen with interference-contrast microscopy (
115). (b) Mixed diatom frustules (
100). (c) Penicillium colonies, and (d) a microscopic view of the mold’s hyphae and conidia (
220). (e) Stentor. The ciliated protozoa are extended and actively feeding, dark-field microscopy (
100). (f) Amanita muscaria, a large poisonous mushroom (
5). (a) (b) (c) (d) (e) (f )