Mini Exam 1 Flashcards
Microbe/microorganisms are…
Organisms too small to see without a microscope
Convert between meters, millimeters, and micrometers
1 meter = 1,000 millimeters = 1,000,000 micrometers
To go from a larger unit to smaller (ex: m to mm) multiply by 1000
To go from a smaller unit to larger (ex: mm to m) divide by 1000
Explain microbial ecology?
Decomposition of organic waste and dead organisms; ex: composting
Explain sewage treatment
Microbes remove harmful waste and microbes
Explain Bioremediation
Clean up chemical/oil/waste spills
Explain Mutualism
Microbes fight off infectious diseases or help digest food
Explain Biotechnology
Produce….
- food; ex: wine, beer, bread, vinegar
- industrial/chemical products; ex: acetone, ethanol, vitamins
- recombinant DNA; ex: generate GMOs, develop medicine and gene therapy, basic research
Explain Phage therapy
treat bacterial infections with phages (viruses that infect bacteria)
Explain Food spoilage/poisoning
Microbes decompose the food and/or their enzymes
Explain Biofilm
Slimy or solid aggregation of bacteria and its secreted material; ex: film on unbrushed teeth
Explain Pathogen, virulent
Pathogen: microbes that cause INFECTIOUS disease, virulent (harm) , causes harm to host while reproducing
Explain Infectious diseases/EID
Emerging infectious diseases (EID): diseases with increasing incidence
- political unrest
- societal influence; anti-vaxxers :/
- climate change; vector-borne diseases like Covid
- spread via modern transport
- high population levels
- interaction with animals; less land for them we live closer
Explain Spontaneous generation
Theory that life could arise from non-living matter
Francesco Redi
Late 1600s; Disproved spontaneous generation by doing an experiment with raw meat
- controlled experiment showing maggots don’t arise in meat without flies
- open container = formation of maggots on meat
- cork sealed = no maggots
- gauze covered = no maggots
- meat still eventually rotted as microbes grew on the meat
Experimental Model
A representative system (organism) used to test a hypothesis
Robert Hooke, cells
1665; first to observe dead cells with a microscope
- named cells the small compartments seen in cork
- wrote Micrographia
Antoine van Leeuwenhoek, animalcules
1670-1720s; first to describe LIVING cells he called “animalcules”
Broth
Liquid that has the nutrients for the growth of microbes
Louis Pasteur, swan-necked flask, fermentation, pasteurization
1861; settled spontaneous generation debate using broth and swan necked flask after noticing heating broth kills bacteria
- heat + sit out = no bacteria
- heat + remove neck and sit = bacteria
- heat + sideways tilt and sit = bacteria
- religion AND science liked this bc “only god gives life” and all that good shit
Aseptic technique
Limited contamination from air and environment
Germ theory of disease
Microbes cause disease, not punishment or bad air
Lab 1
E.coli & Shigella
E.coli
- gram negative bacillus bacterium
- abundant in healthy gut, UTI if in bladder
- pathogenic strains: shiga toxin producing E.coli (STEC)
- common model organism: molecular and phage genetics, recomb. DNA, protein expression
Shigella
- genus expressing Shiga toxin, causes dysentery, food borne illness with bloody diarrhea
Listeria
- gram positive bacillus bacterium
- pathogenic; food-borne illness, listeriosis (20-30% fatality, 1600 illnesses and 260 deaths in USA annually, can cause meningitis and sepsis)
- temperature dependent flagella; RT present, 37C not
- intracelular; spread cell to cell
- can grow at 0C (refrigeration)
