Bacterial Growth and Genetics Flashcards
What is an organism that requires higher CO2 concentrations than is in room air called?
capnophile
What is fastidious nutrition?
The need of a cell to have numerous essential nutrients for growth
(they will not grow on a normal agar plate)
What is fermentation?
Anaerobic breakdown/oxidation of organic compounds (sugars, carbons) to form alchohols or acids
What type of bacteria would Pasteurization destroy?
It is a process where dairy is exposed to temperatures for a time to destroy pathogenic NON-SPORE FORMING bacteria
To produce overt illness, the bacteria must multiply to a point where they ______________________ and the host response is ___________________________.
they need to disrupt normal cell function and get to a point where the host response is sufficient to form disease
What are abortive, subclinical and inapparent infections?
How are they diagnosed?
These are infections that are not able to mount a sufficient host response to cause overt illness.
Seroconversion (circulating antibodies) should still show evidence of infection
What determines the ability of a bacteria to reach a level where they cause overt illness?
inoculum size/ infection dose - this is difficult to diagnose in humans because of person-to-person variation in host defenses and individual variations
How does generation time differ between growth in a host and growth in pure culture?
Apparent growth in a host is generally longer because the environment is more dynamic
For bacteria, what is the definition of “growth”?
Multiplication in cell number NOT an increase in size of the existing cell or components of the bacteria
Which bacteria use O2 as their terminal electron acceptor?
What are the respiratory products?
How does the amount of ATP produced compare to fermentation?
Aerobic and facultative aerobes are able to use O2 as the final electron acceptor.
They generate CO2 and H2O
Compared to fermentation, they make a lot of ATP
What bacteria are not able to utilize O2 as their final e- receptor?
What is their final electron acceptor?
What are the products?
How does the amount of ATP produced compare to respiratory oxidation?
Facultative anaerobes, strict anaerobes and microaerophiles use metabolic intermediates as their final e- acceptor
They produce organic compounds with or without gas
Low levels of ATP are produced comparatively
What is fermentation?
How many pathways exist? How are they distinguished from each other?
It is the utilization of carbohydrates as the final e- acceptor.
There are six pathways and they are differentiated by their end products (organic acids, neutral solvents, gas, in varying proportions)
What is the simplest fermentation pathway?
Homolactic pathway (glucose +2ADP–> 2 lactic acid + 2ATP)
What two toxic substances are produced during bacterial growth in the presence of O2?
What enzymes are used to break them down?
h2o2 is produced and is broken down by catalase to H20 and 02
O2- (superoxide) is produces and is broken down by superoxide dismutase (SOD) to for H202 and O2)
What are the four classifications for O2 use in bacteria? Which utilize catalase? Which utilize SOD?
Which can ferment?
- Aerobes- catalase/SOD, no fermentation
- Anaerobes- no catalase/SOD, fermentation only
- Facultative anaerobes- catalase/SOD, oxidative and fermentation
- Microaerophilic- SOD, no catalase, fermentation
What percent of bacteria in the colon are anaerobic?
99.99%
What is the difference between an autotroph and heterotroph?
What are all medically important bacteria?
Autotrophs derive energy from oxidizing inorganic substrates or sunlight
Heterotrophs require one or more organic carbon component as energy
All medically important bacteria are heterotrophs
If a bacteria requires an exogenous source of AA, B vitamins and/or nucleic acid components, what kind of growth is it said to have?
Fastidious growth
Bacteria grow optimally at certain temperatures. What are bacteria called that grow at:
- low temp
- medium temp
- high temp
and what are the temperature ranges?
Most bacteria that grow in humans are considered what type?
- psychrophiles- 0 to 25 degrees C (10-15 optimum)
- mesophiles- 15 to 45 degrees C (30-37 optimal)
- Thermophiles- 35 to 70 degrees C (55 optimal)
Most bacteria in humans are mesophiles
At what pH do most bacteria grow?
What lead to some exceptions?
6-7.4 (optimal body pH)
Some have pH for certain niches though. Ex. acidic pH in urine allows UTI pathogens to grow
Growth in alkaline or acidic environments have diagnostic value
What osmotic pressure do bacteria grow best at?
What food storage practice utilizes this information?
They grow best at a pressure equivalent to physiological saline
Conditions with high osmotic pressure (canned goods because of salt/.sugar content) limit the growth
How do bacteria grow in pure culture?
Bacteria multiply by binary fission where each parental cell produces two identical daughter cells (there can be spontaneous mutations however that change the daughter cells from each other slightly)
What are liquid and solid media usually composed of?
partial digests or animal and plant extracts
Liquid- extracts and extra elements required for growth
Solid- extracts, extra elements for growth, agar
On solid media, each colony that grows is derived from _______________.and is ___________.
Derived from a single progenitor cell and are clonal
What are indirect measures of growth?
What is the pro? What is the con?
Measurements from parameters related to cell mass.
In liquid media this would be:
1. Turbidity- density of the liquid prep/bacteria
2. dry weight
3. bacterial nitrogen
Pro- it is faster/easier. Con- don’t know whether the bacteria are alive or dead
What are direct measurements of bacterial growth?
Utilize total or viable counting techniques.
- Hemocytometer- gives total count
- CFU (viable plate count)- needs dilution of sample so after incubation you can count colonies)
What is bacterial viability?
The ability of a bacteria to grow on media when it is plated and incubated on suitable media
What is the preferred method for testing bacteria growth and is used to test pools, milk, drinking water, etc?
Viable plate counting
What are the four phases of bacterial growth?
- Lag phase
- Logarithmic growth phase
- Stationary phase
- Death/decline phase
In theory, all bacteria go through the same growth stages. They only differ in what three aspects?
- duration of the phase
- maximum growth rate
- max number of bacteria obtained
What is different in every phase of bacterial growth?What controls this change?
- type of proteins in the phase
- different amounts of the same protein in each phase
Protein synthesis and expression is governed by sigma factor of the RNA polymerase. Different sigma factors= different proteins
In the lag phase, what happens to the number of cells, the metabolic activity of the cells and the cell mass?
number of cells- no increase
cell mass- increase
metabolic activity - increase
What determines the duration of the lag phase?
- inoculum size
- metabolic state
- whether or not the medium is optimal for growth
What phase of bacterial growth do most antibiotics target?
They target the logarithmic stage because they will target aspects of bacterial replication and this is where bacteria are replicating the most
What happens to the cell number, cell mass, and metabolic activity during the logarithmic phase of bacterial growth?
cell number- increase rapidly
Cell mass- increase at the same rate as cell number
metabolic rate- max logarithmic rate (doubling each replication)
Describe a bacterial cell that is in the logarithmic growth phase.
It will be large, with lots of ribosomes and will be very metabolically active
What causes the growth rate to slow down and forces the bacteria into stationary phase?
The metabolic products produced in log phase accumulate and energy/nutrients are depleted so growth rate slows and viable count is constant
What happens to the viable cell count during the stationary phase?
It becomes constant
Does division occur during stationary phase?
Yes, but it is balanced out by cell death
Why are bacterial cells in stationary phase more resistant to antibiotics?
They are smaller and less metabolically active.
Antibiotics target replication machinery
What is cellular activity like during the death phase? what is the cell size?
Cells are small and activity is practically absent
What is the difference between sterilization and disinfection?
Sterilization is the complete absence of life and is achieved by physical and chemical methods.
Disinfection implies the killing or removal of pathogenic or potentially pathogenic microorganisms
All methods of bacterial killing are ________ dependent and require a sufficient ________ so that resistant bacteria can be killed.
Time-dependent; time
What are the four physical methods used to disinfect and/or sterilize?
- Temperature
- Radiation
- Filtration
- Asepsis
For sterilization ____ heat is better than _____ heat.
Moist is better than dry
What is the mostly widely used sterilization technique?
Autoclaving- put tools in a pressure chamber with 15lbs pressure (121degrees C) for 15 minutes
How long does autoclaving (moist heat) take to kill bacteria and at what temperature?
How long do ovens (dry heat) take and at what temperature?
Autoclaving- 121degrees for 15 minutes
Oven- 160-180 degrees for 2 hours
Why does refrigeration not work as a sterilization technique?
It does not kill the bacteria, only slows/stops the growth
What is UV radiation typically used to sterilize? Why?
It sterilizes surfaces and air masses because it has little penetrating power
For selective removal of bacteria, what technique is used?
What is an important consideration when selecting this technique?
Filtration- typically cellulose ester
It is important to consider the pores size (bacteria are 0.2-2 microns so you want the pore to be smaller)
What is filtration usually used to sterilize?
Biologicals and other substances that are denatured at high temps
What is asepsis and how is it different from the other sterilizers?
It is a technique to maintain sterilization, but it can not sterilize itself.
Asepsis provides a barrier impervious to bacteria (plugs, wraps, closures)
What are the 8 chemical methods for disinfection, germicisdes, antiseptics, etc?
- alcohols
- detergents
- phenols
- halogens
- heavy metal
- h2o2
- formaldehyde and glutaraldehyde
- ethylene oxid
What are detergents and how are they similar to alcohols in mechanism?
Detergents are quarternary ammonium compounds
Alcohol and detergents disrupt cell membranes
How do phenols disinfect?
They disrupt the cell membrane and denature proteins
How do halogens disinfect?
They are oxidizing agents effective against sulfhydryl groups