Systolic inequalities and chromatic number

We show that the discrete versions of the systolic inequality that estimate the number of vertices of a simplicial complex from below have substantial applications to graphs, the one-dimensional simplicial complexes. Almost directly they provide good estimates for the number of vertices of a graph in terms of its chromatic number and the length of the smallest odd cycle. Combined with the graph-theoretic techniques of Berlov and Bogdanov, the systolic approach produces even better estimates.