Exam 1 Flashcards
The first documented description of a microorganism was of a ___ by ___.
Mold / Robert Hooke
___ produced by microbial fermentation of glucose from cellulose or cornstarch is becoming a more important component of biofuels in the United States, and specialized ___ are needed to make this a commercially available product.
Ethanol / industrial microbiologists
Microbial sterilization is used to:
Kill all microbes in or on objects
Microbes playing a role in nitrogen fixation in plants live in ___, while those playing a role in the digestive tract of certain herbivores live in ___.
Nodules / rumens
The disease anthrax is caused by the pathogenic bacterium ___, which produces heat-resistant structures known as ___.
Bacillus subtillis / endospores
You have discovered a new coccoid-shaped microorganism with no nucleus, a rigid cell wall, and a diameter of 2 um. Chemical tests reveal that it’s cell wall does not contain peptidoglycan. The new microorganism is:
Most likely an Archean
Determine which outcome is least likely for a microorganism being motile.
Transfer of plasmids to progeny
Some of the intestinal symptoms elicited by a pathogen such as Escherichia coli (gram -) are due to the presence of:
Lipopolysaccharides
A pure culture:
Is a population of identical cells
The science of grouping and classifying microorganisms is known as:
Microbial systematics
An organism of the genus Staphylococcus is ___, while an organism of the genus Spirochaeta is ___.
Spherical / coiled
A Pasteur flask has:
A swan neck to prevent particulate matter from getting into the main body of the flask
Most prokaryotic cells reside:
In the oceanic and terrestrial subsurfaces
Mycobacterium tuberculosis is very difficult to stain because of the:
Large amounts of a waxy lipid present in its cell wall
The process whereby microorganisms are used to help clean up pollution by human activities is known as:
Bioremediation
A microbial cells membrane is considered ___, because it’s internal constituents are mentioned within the cell. However, it also imports and exports other molecules in response to its environments.
Semipermeable
Bacteria stain as gram-positive or gram-negative because of its differences in the cell:
Wall
The lipids in the cytoplasmic membrane of bacteria and ___ contain ester linkages, while the cytoplasmic membrane of ___ contain ether linkages.
Eukarya / archaea
The person who described the “wee animalcules” was:
Antoni van Leeuwenhoek
Which of the following statements is true?
Fimbriae are usually shorter than flagella and enable cells to adhere to surfaces, whereas pili are involved in genetic exchange
___ are charged molecules that are partially responsible for the ___ charge of the gram-positive bacterial cell surface.
Teichoic cells / negative
Which of the following types of microscopy could be used to visualize the layers of the cell membrane and the cell wall?
Transmission electron microscopy
Microbial ecology is the study of:
Microorganisms in their natural environment
Which scientific objective is least related to microbial genetics?
Identifying quorum sensing interactions among bacteria