Chapter 17 - Microorganisms, Viruses, Bacteria And Protist Flashcards
What are microorganisms?
- unicellular
- microscopic
- prokaryotic or eukaryotic
- pathogenic
What are some infectious agents?
- bacteria
- fungi
- protozoa
- viral
- prion
What is a prion?
- infectious proteins
* transmissible spongiform encephalopathy
What are the characteristics of life?
- structurally organized- order
- ability to acquire materials and energy
- ability to reproduce
- life comes from life - ability to respond to stimuli
- behavior - ability to maintain homeostasis
- “staying the same”
- maintaining relatively constant internal temperature - ability to grow and develop
- ability to adapt to the environment
- evolution- process by which a species changes over time resulting in increased adaption
Viruses are not includes in the classification of organisms because…
- noncellular
- obligate intracellular parasites
- alive or not?
What are the two parts to every virus?
- outer capsid - composed of protein subunits
- inner core -either DNA or RNA
- viral genome very small
What do only some viruses have?
- spikes or attachment to host cell
- outer envelope
Explain viral reproduction…
- specific to a particular host cell
- -must be able to attach
- once inside host cell, viral genome takes over the metabolic machinery of the host cell to make more viruses
How can bacteriophages or phages reproduce?
- inside a bacterium
- lytic or lysogenic cycles
Explain the steps of the lytic cycle..
- virus takes over immediately
- bacteria dies immediately after virus release
- 5 stages - attachment, penetration, biosynthesis, maturation, and release
Explain the steps in the lysogenic cycle…
- phage lies latent until triggered to enter lytic cycle
- bacteria does not die until phage enters lytic cycle
- after attachment and penetration, phage integrates into host chromosome as a prophage
- trigger causes phage to enter lytic cycle biosynthesis, maturation and release
Plant viruses…
- tend to enter through damaged tissues
- move through plasmodesmata
- tobacco mosaic virus
- until recently, the only way to control viruses was to destroy symptomatic plants and control insect vector (if there is one)
- with bioengineering, possible to transfer genes for disease resistance between plants
- -creation of transgenic papaya plants in Hawaii resistant to PRSV
Animal viruses…
- reproduce similar to bacteriophages
- some,but not all, will have an outer membranous envelope beyond capsid
- -made from host cell plasma membrane
- herpesviruses (causes cold sores, genital herpes, and chickenpox in humans) are infectious that remain latent most of the time
- stress can cause them to enter lytic cycle
- retroviruses
- -RNA animal viruses with a DNA stage
- HIV - causes AIDS
- reverse transcriptase makes DNA from RNA template
Emerging viruses…
- causative agent of a disease that only recently has infected large number of people.
- hiv, west nile virus, sars virus, hanta virus, ebola virus, bird flu virus… Etc.
- emerge in several ways
- transported to new location
- able to infect new species
- new mode of transmission
Drugs…
- difficult to develop - use cell’s own machinery.
- some drugs structurally similar to nucleotides to interfere in viral genome synthesis.
- some block viral enzymes like reverse transcriptase in hiv
Virods…
- naked strands of rna not covered by capsid
- like virus takes over cell to make more viroids
- about a dozen crop diseases
Prions…
- proteinacious infections particles
- misshaped protein changes normal protein ini more misshapen protein
- discovered as cause of kuru
- also mad cow disease and creutzfeldt-jakob disease
Kuru…
- fore people of papua new guinea
- prior to the 1950s, a dead family member was cooked and eaten
- brain most likely to pass kuru
The prokaryotes have…
- no nucleus to contain genome
- no membrane-bounded organelles
- far greater metabolic capabilities than more complex organisms
- bacteria and archea
Protocells…
- cell-like structures complete with outer membrane
- may have resulted from self-assembly of macromolecules
- gave rise to cellular life
What were the firs living cells?
Prokaryotes (found in rocks 3.5 billion years old.)
What was different about the conditions of early earth?
- temperature high, little free oxygen
- abiotic synthesis of organic molecules with input from energy source (like lightning, sunlight, meteorite impact, volcanic activity, or radioactive decay.)