Figure 3

Comparisons of morphology across rod-shaped species with different cell sizes. (a) Images of bacteria (phase contrast, scale bar: 2 μm) and yeast (fluorescence images of calcofluor-stained cells, scale bar: 10 μm) are shown. (b) Outlines were computed using a custom Matlab algorithm [25], and curvature profiles of yeast cell outlines were smoothed over 25 pixels. Despite the wide range of sizes and modes of growth, the cells have similar shapes, as evidenced by their smoothed curvature profiles (in colors corresponding to the box outlines in (a)) normalized to the maximal curvature along the contour.