A top color diagram and a bottom black and white electron micrograph show a rod-shaped prokaryotic cell with a 0.5 5m scale bar.

The image shows a typical rod-shaped prokaryotic cell with a thick, textured yellow cell wall surrounding a thin, smooth plasma membrane that closely follows the same oval outline. Inside, the cytoplasm is depicted as a light gray, uniform interior filled with numerous tiny multicolored dots representing free ribosomes dispersed throughout the cell. Dominating the central region is a long, coiled, looping red filament illustrating the single circular bacterial chromosome, shown without any membrane surrounding it. Several much smaller red circular loops, the plasmids, appear separate from the main chromosome and are located near the cell’s periphery. The entire cell is drawn in a slightly three-dimensional perspective with rounded ends, giving it a classic bacillus form, and a 0.5-µm scale bar provides a sense of size. Beneath the diagram, a black-and-white transmission electron micrograph of a real bacterium offers a textured reference image for comparison. See more