Chapter 1.3 Bacterial Sex Genetics Flashcards
What are the 4 ways that bacteria are able to exchange genetic fragments?
Transformation, transduction, conjugation, and transposon
What occurs during transformation?
Naked DNA fragments from one bacterium, released during cell lysis, bind to the cell wall of another bacterium and incorporate into the genome
What occurs during transduction?
A virus that infects a bacteria, carries a piece of bacterial DNA from one bacterium to another
What is a bacteriophage?
A bacteria that is infected with a virus
The bacteria resembles most viruses and has a protein coat (capsid)
What is lysogenic immunity?
The ability of an integrated bacteriophage (prophage) to block a subsequent infection by a similar phage
What is generalized transduction?
Virulent phages destroy bacterial DNA and translate it to capsids and are packaged so when the cell lysis the phages have a copy of the original bacteria
What is conjugation?
Bacterial sex- DNA is transferred directly by cell-to-cell contact and exchanging of genetic information
What bacteria can exchange through conjugation
Related and unrelated bacteria
*Is the major mechanism for transfer of antibiotic resistance
What is a self-transmissible plasmid?
A plasmid from one bacterium that encodes the enzymes and proteins necessary to carry out conjugation
What is the sex pilus?
The gene that encodes enzymes and proteins that form the sex penis on the self-transmissible plasmid
Penetrates the cell membrane of the recipient bacterium and transfers single strand of DNA
What are transposons?
Mobile genetic elements of DNA that an insert themselves into a donor chromosome without having any DNA homology
What is the clinical importance of transposons?
Transposon gene incorporates a particular drug resistance that can move to the plasmids of different bacterial genera
