Midterm 2 Flashcards
Coulter counters
A known volume of microbial suspension is forced through a small orifice
Movement of microbe through impacts the electric current (increases resistance) - these instances are counted
Flow cytometry
Similar to coulter counters but a light beam is disrupted rather than an electrical current.
Petrroff - Hausser Counting Chamber
Need to know the volume that was added (get a concentration)
Know the volume of the liquid based on the volume of the area under the coverslip.
What are viable counts?
Measurement of living, reproducing population of cells.
Ways to get viable counts?
Spread plate or pour plate method
- spread plate - can surface colonies
- pour plate - get surface and subsurface colonies
Most probable number technique
Similar to plate counts - but in LIQUID culture
Used to estimate the number of microorganisms in food, wastewater, and other samples.
Good for rapid determination of approximate populations
Indirect counting methods
Optical density, cell biomass, measuring of a cell component (like proteins), gene counting using quantitative PCR
Measure rate of production of a cell component or rate of consumption of a substrate
The most important indirect counting method in biol labs
Optical density! It is fast and has pretty good measurement of the actual cell count.
- shine light through culture to measure how much light gets scattered through
- the amount of scattered light is proportional to the amount of cells in the sample.
Too many cells –> get scattering effects however
what is a batch culture?
Growth in a closed system, medium NOT replenished
Growth conditions are constantly changing; it is impossible to control growth parameters
Continuous culture
An open system microbial culture of fixed volume.
Allows bacteria to always be in a state of growth
chemostat
the most common type of continuous culture
Both growth rate and population density can be controlled independently and simultaneously
The growth rate is controlled by the dilution rate
The growth yield (cell number/ml) is controlled by the concentration of the limiting nutrient
Both growth and population density of culture can be controlled independently and simultaneously
Dilution rate
Rate at which fresh medium is pumped in and spent medium is pumped out
What keeps the volume constant in a chemostat or continuous culture
Growth rate is controlled by the dilution rate
D = F/V where F is the flow rate and V is the culture volume, D is the dilution rate
What is controlled by the concentration of the limiting nutrient in a chemostat?
The growth yield (cell number/ml)
= density
What is controlled by the dilution rate in a chemostat?
The growth rate
Dilution Rate formula
D= F/V
where F is the flow rate and V is the culture volume, D is the dilution rate
What happens when a chemostat culture has too high of a dilution rate?
Organism is washed out
\What happens when a chemostat culture has too high of a dilution rate?
Organisms may die of starvation
Uses of a chemostat?
Fermentations (production of large amounts of cell mass)
Physiological studies (to determine max growth rate)
Useful tool because scientists can control growth rate and population density INDEPENDENTLY and obtain a steady cell supply
Tends to simulate natural conditions better than a batch culture
Ecological studies into competition, predation
What are the 4 basic -omic sciences?
DNA - RNA - Proteins - Metabolism
Genome, Transcriptome, Proteome, Metabolome
meta- meaning
Prefix implying beyond, more transcending - usually omics of a microbial community instead of a single strain
genome
Entire complement of genetic information in an organism
Includes genes, regulatory sequences, and noncoding DNA
Bacteria have small genomes relative to Eukaryotes but they have more efficient use of space (little garbage DNA relative to eukaryotes)
Genomics
Discipline of mapping, sequencing, analyzing, and comparing genomes
400 000 <
Genome size in ____bases correlates to the total number of thousands of ORFs in the genome
Mega
5 Megabases = 5000 ORFS
1 kilobase = 1 ORF?
ORF = gene that codes for a protein
Prokaryotes with larger genomes?
More versatile, can live in different environments
Like a swiss-army knife bacteria
Those with small genomes - endo symbionts/parasites - rely on their host for stuff as they don’t have the genes to produce it
As the genome increases in size, a larger proportion of the genes are dedicated to»>
Transcription, signal transduction
While a smaller proportion of genes are dedicated to translation and DNA replication (all organisms have roughly the same amount of genes dedicated to DNA replication)
sequencing
determining the precise order of nucleotides in a DNA or RNA molecule
genome assembly
taking short fragments of sequenced DNA and puzzling them together into larger configurations (ideally a complete chromosome)
genome annotation
Converting raw sequence (DNA) data into a list of genes and other functional sequences present in the genome.
- Deciding what the genes do
bioinformatics
analyzing sequences and structures of nucleic acids and proteins
Sanger sequencing
Copying of orginal single stranded DNA
small amounts of dideoxy nTPs are used with dNTPs. There is a diff fluorescent dye for each ddNTP base.
ddNTPs are CHAIN TERMINATORS preventing further elongation of DNA chain during PCR. They insert randomly, producing DNA chains of varying lengths
Capillary electrophoresis of fragments and detection of labels (sort by size of fragments) - automated sequencer reads the output.
Next generation sequencing
Much cheaper and allows much greater through put than Sanger sequencing.
Most of these techniques work by eaves dropping on a DNA polymerase as it copies a DNA strand
closed vs draft genome
A closed genome has an entirely circular chromosome with no missing pieces (rare)
More expensive, but provides us with more information
A draft genome - has gaps in it, is incomplete. Can be very close to being closed - Find pieces of overlap and build outward from here
ORF stand for______ and encodes for a_______
open reading frame and encodes a protein (functional ORF encodes a protein)
q
ORFs
Bacterial and Archael genomes are a series of open reading frames
The function of ORFs is predicted by searching for similarities in gene/protein data bases
Comparing ORFs found in an organism by using these data bases can help us determine the metabolic capabilities of the organism.
How long is the average gene?
1000 bps long
What is an indication that there is really an ORF present when the computer is scanning for them?
The presence of a ribosomal binding site at the beginning of the ORF
What are hypothetical proteins?
Uncharacterized ORFs - proteins that likely exist but whose function is currently unknown - about 30% of the ORFs
- lack of sufficient amino acid sequence homology with known proteins for identification
single cell genomics
Sequencing the genomes of single cells
Uses multiple displacement amplification MDA(modified PCR) for making multiple copies of the single cell’s genome
Dilute and distribute cells to microwells
lyse the cells
Amplify DNA by MDA
Sequence DNA
Sequence analysis
What is one discovery that comparative genomics/ gene sequencing has told us?
That horizontal gene flow is very common
What is one discovery that comparative genomics/ gene sequencing has told us?
That horizontal gene flow is very commongenomi
genomic islands
foreign DNA that is generally isolated to the same area within the cell