Bacteriology - pathogenesis Flashcards
What is the name of bacterial that replicate in the host without causing disease?
Commensals
What are virulence factors?
Bacterial adaptations that contribute to pathogenesis
What features of bacteria aid colonization?
Pili, fimbriae and polysaccharide capsules
What do Koch’s postulates describe?
They are four criteria designed to establish a causative relationship between a microbe and a disease
What are Koch’s postulates?
1) The microorganisms must be found in abundance in all organisms suffering from the disease, but should not be found in healthy organisms
2) The microorganism must be isolate from a diseased organism and grown in pure culture
3) The cultured microorganism should cause disease when introduced into a healthy organism
4) The microorganism must be reisolated from the inoculated, diseased experimental host and identified as being identified to the original specific causative agent
What is bacteraemia?
The presence of bacteria in the blood
What can bacteraemia lead to?
The immune response to the bacteria can cause sepsis and septic shock
Which severe infections can cause bacteraemia?
Pneumonia or meningitis
What is sepsis?
When the body’s response to infection causes injury to its tissues and organs
What is septic shock?
Condition that occurs when sepsis leads to life-threatening low blood pressure
Give basic examples of immune evasion
- Host mimicry
- Antigenic variation
- Recruitment of immune modulators
- Subversion of immune responses
How may gene transcription be regulated during bacterial growth?
- Nutrient sensing
- Two component signal transduction
- Quorum sensing
What is nutrient sensing?
Gene transcription regulated by detection of specific nutrients
What is two-component signal transduction?
Sensor detects an environmental factor and phosphorylates a regulator that activates gene transcription
What is quorum sensing?
Changes in cell-population density alter levels of diffusible autoinducers (that increase in concentration as a function of cell density) that bind to transcriptional activators inducing gene transcription - in effect, quorum sensing is a mechanism of communication between bacteria
Give an example of a bacterial cell component that mediates adhesion
Type 1 pili → mediate E.coli adhesion to human bladder epithelial cells → cystitis
Give examples of intracellular pathogens
Salmonella
Shigella
MTB
What is speticemia?
The poisoning of the blood by bacteria of their toxins
How may bacteria invade tissues?
- enzymes that degrade matrix (e.g. hyraluronidase, elastase)
- Some IC bacteria use ligand receptor interactions to gain access to a cell → example is TB → uptake is initiated by interaction between either the macrophage mannose receptor or the complement receptors, and bacterial surface proteins
What types of bacteria secrete exotoxins?
Both G+ and G-
What is the composition of exotoxins?
They are proteins
What are invasins?
Toxins that have a local activity in promoting bacterial invasion
What are exotoxins usually encoded on?
Plasmid or bacteriophage DNA, rather than on the bacterial chromosome
Do endo- or exotoxins have a higher toxicity?
Exotoxins
Do endo- or exotoxins have a higher specificity to bacterial strains?
Exotoxins
Give examples of some mechanisms of action of exotoxins?
ADP-ribosylation Protease activity Cleavage of other substances Superantigens Glucosyltransferases Pore-forming toxins
What are molecular Koch’s postulates?
A set of experimental criteria that must be satisfied to show that a gene found in a pathogenic microorganism encodes a product that contributes to the disease caused by the pathogen
What are genes that satisfy molecular Koch’s postulates known as?
Virulence factors
What are the molecular Koch’s postulates?
1 - the disease phenotype should be associated with the pathogenic members of a genus, or strains of a species - it should be absent from pathogenic ones
2 - Specific inactivation of virulence trait genes should lead to a loss in pathogenicity
3 - Reversion or replacement of the mutated gene leads to restoration of pathogenicity
Example of exotoxin acting via protease acitvity
Botulinum toxin released by Clostridium botulinum