Recent studies applying advanced imaging techniques are changing the way we understand bacterial cell surfaces, bringing new knowledge on everything from single-cell heterogeneity in bacterial populations to their drug sensitivity and mechanisms of antimicrobial resistance. In both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria, the outermost surface of the bacterial cell is being imaged at nanoscale; as a result, topographical maps of bacterial cell surfaces can be constructed, revealing distinct zones and specific features that might uniquely identify each cell in a population. Functionally defined assembly precincts for protein insertion into the membrane have been mapped at nanoscale, and equivalent lipid-assembly precincts are suggested from discrete lipopolysaccharide patches. As we review here, particularly for Gram-negative bacteria, the applications of various modalities of nanoscale imaging are reawakening our curiosity about what is conceptually a 3D cell surface landscape: what it looks like, how it is made and how it provides resilience to respond to environmental impacts.

最近应用先进成像技术的研究正在改变我们理解细菌细胞表面的方式，带来了从细菌群体的单细胞异质性到药物敏感性和抗菌素耐药机制等各个方面的新知识。在革兰氏阳性和革兰氏阴性细菌中，细菌细胞的最外层表面都以纳米级成像；因此，可以构建细菌细胞表面的地形图，揭示不同的区域和特定的特征，可以唯一地识别群体中的每个细胞。用于蛋白质插入膜的功能定义的组装区域已在纳米尺度上绘制，并且从离散的脂多糖斑块中建议了等效的脂质组装区域。正如我们在这里回顾的那样，特别是对于革兰氏阴性细菌，