Lecture 2: Cell Structure and Function Part 2 Flashcards
Describe the cell walls Of Archaea and bacteria
• Outside the cell membrane
• Rigid
- Helps determine cell shape
- Not a major permeability barrier (as long as its small it can come thru)
- Porous to most small molecules
- Protects the cell from osmotic changes
Describe how the cell wall functions when cell is hypertonic
cell= hypertonic
environment= hypotonic
so water rushes in
the plasma membrane swells when water rushes in the cell wall pushes back and exerts a counter pressure so cell won’t burst
*CELL WALL WILL ONLY PROVIDE INDEFINITE PROTECTION- CELL WILL EVENTUALLY BURT IF TO MUCH WATER
How does penicillin impact the cell wall?
When we take penicillin it actively interferes with formation of peptidoglycan so the peptidoglycan on an organism that’s growing doesn’t have cross links so it’s not strong
-> bacterium that’s trying to grow in presence of penicillin will have holes in PM bc cell burst bc it didn’t have strong cell wall to protect against osmotic rupture
Describe the function of the cell wall
- Cell wall prevents cell expansion – protects against osmotic lysis
- Protects against toxic substances – large hydrophobic molecules
- Ex) detergents, antibiotics
- Pathogenicity
- Helps evade host immune system
- Helps bacterium stick to surfaces
• Partly responsible for cell shape.
-> rigid but some also have cytoskeleton to help with shape
Isotonic
water will come and go but there’s no net movement of water
- cell shape is constant
- ideal
Hypotonic solution
water moves into the cell and may cause the cell to burst if the wall is weak or damaged (osmotic lysis0
- cell components come out and cell is no longer living- DEAD
Hypertonic
water rushes out causing PM to shrink
- > plasmolysis
- > found in salty environments
- > PM shrinks cell wall stays the same
- > not dead just dehydrated (shriveled) asleep (metabolically inactive) as soon as its hydrated it will become active (resume metabolism)
Explain why honey doesn’t need to be refrigerated?
bc its so hypertonic
-> the bacteria are dehydrated so they don’t have enough water to metabolize sugar to grow and increase in number
same reason why salty meats don’t get spoiled
What is the name of bacteria that is an exception being neither gram positive or negative?
mycoplasma
Gram-negative cell wall
Two layers:LPS and
peptidoglycan
Gram-positive cell wall
One layer:peptidoglycan
Peptidoglycan
Rigid layer that provides strength to cell wall (imp bc they are unicellular so have cell wall offers even more protection)
• Polysaccharide composed of: • N-acetylglucosamine and N- acetylmuramic acid • Amino acids • Lysine or diaminopimelic acid (DAP) • Cross-linked differently in gram- negative bacteria and gram- positive bacteria • Form glycan tetrapeptide
- perpendicular cross links create lattice structure to make structure strong
What isomer do prokaryotes recognize?
D
us- L
What does penicillin target?
the enzymes used to form the cross links
Is penicillin more effective on gram positive or gram negative organisms why?
Gram positive bc theres more peptidoglycan
Describe the NAG and NAM
disaccharide
- beta 1- 4 linkages
Lysozyme
destroys NAM and NAG
targets the beta 1-4 bond
- when it breaks that bond, the linear chains are fragmented (disassembling the cell wall of the organism)
- in doing so it protects our eyes, skin, mouth against bacterial infection
- but has to have peptidoglycan & will have more of an impact on organisms that are gram + b/c they have thick layers of PD
Interbridge
No interbridge is present in gram-negative Bacteria (e.g. E. coli) bc they have a single layer of peptidoglycan
The interbridge in Staphylococcus aureus (gram positive) is made up of 5 glycine residues
Describe the composition of Gram-positive cell walls
• Contain up to 90% peptidoglycan
• Common to have teichoic acids (acidic substances) embedded in their cell wall
• Lipoteichoicacids: teichoic acids covalently bound to membrane lipids
- embedded within lipid layer of PM
Model of Peptidoglycan Surrounding cell wall
- Backbone formed of NAM and NAG connected by glycosidic bonds
- Crosslinks formed by peptides
- Peptidoglycan strand is helical
- Allows 3-dimensional cross linking
- E. coli has one layer
- Some cell walls can be 50 - 100 layers thick, e.g. Bacillus species (gram positive)
Name Prokaryotes that lack cell walls
- Mycoplasmas
- Group Of Pathogenic Bacteria
- Have sterols(cholesterol/ other sterols which adds hot/ cold stability, we also use cholestrol) in cytoplasmic membrane–adds strength and rigidity to
- Thermoplasma
- Species of Archaea
- Contain lipoglycans in membrane that have strengthening effect
LPS: The Outer Membrane
- Total cell wall contains ~10% peptidoglycan
- Most of cell wall composed of outer membrane, aka lipopolysaccharide (LPS) layer
- LPS consists of core polysaccharide and O-polysaccharide
- LPS replaces most phospholipids in outer half of outer membrane
- Endotoxin(lipidA):the toxic component of LPS
Endotoxin(lipidA)
:the toxic component of LPS
- only toxic when released from dead cell not toxic when attached to the cell
Describe the outer leaflet of the outer membrane
contains the LPS and some phospholipids
inner leaflet contains phospholipids
What is gram negative sepsis?
Organism is everywhere
- endotoxin dramatically activates the immune system
- > causes blood vessels to dilate (inflammation)
- > when systemic it causes all the blood vessels to dilate lowering bp you don’t have enough pressure to deliver nutrients and oxygen and your tissues start to die
What happens if a person with gram negative sepsis is given antibiotics?
ENDOTOXIN gets RELEASED when you aggressively kill bacteria in really high [ ] in the cell structure
- can kill them