Bacteria

∞ generated and posted on 2023.05.18 ∞

Type of cellular organisms lacking nuclei.

The bacteria are one domain of prokaryotic organisms, i.e., domain Bacteria, though the term more loosely has been used to describe prokaryotic organisms in general.

All prokaryotic pathogens are members of domain Bacteria and bacteria in combination with archaea otherwise are the most numerous cellular organisms on Earth, with an estimated more than 10³⁰ cellsin total.

The human body has approximately 100 trillion bacteria associated with it, outnumbering human body cells by about ten to one. See the concepts of normal flora, normal microbiota, and microbiome, including human microbiome.

Bacteria play key and crucial ecological roles as decomposers, nutrient "fixers", and nutrient mineralizers. Bacteria play essential roles in biotechnology and a number of familiar foods are products of bacterial fermentation such as yogurt.

The word prokaryote is often used as a synonym for bacteria. There is a movement afoot, however, to consign the latter term to the history books. The use of "bacteria" in this context technically is a little bit inaccurate. That is, strictly, one can speak of members of domain Bacteria and domain Archaea, where both are collections of prokaryotic organisms and, used loosely, the word "bacteria" can be used to describe either. In technical writing, however, the use of "bacteria" as a synonym for prokaryote should be avoided, hence the utility of the term prokaryote!