Missing Microbes Flashcards
What are considered some modern plagues?
Obesity, childhood diabetes, asthma, hay fever, food allergies, esophageal reflux and cancer, celiac diasease, Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, autism, eczema
What are the conditions of today’s world like compared to the lethal plagues of the past?
The lethal plagues of the past strict fast and hard but today they are chronic conditions that diminish and degrade their victims’ quality of life for decades
How has type 1 diabetes changed?
Has been doubling in incidence about every twenty years across the industrialized world
Also striking younger children
What do the rise in chronic conditions suggest?
Children are experiencing levels of immune dysfunction never seen before
What is the most popular explanation for the ride in childhood illness?
Hygiene hypothesis ~ modern plagues are happening because we have made our world too clean and the result is that our children’s immune systems have become quiescent and are prone to false alarms and friendly fire
The microorganisms that make a living in and on our bodies, massive assemblages of competing and cooperating microbes
Microbiome
Where do microbes thrive in/on our bodies?
Mouth, gut, nasal passage, ear canal, on the skin, vagina
Why are parts of our microbiome disappearing?
1) . Overuse of antibiotics in humans and animals
2) . Cesarean sections
3) . Widespread use of sanitizer sand antiseptics
How does the loss of our microbiome affect us?
- changes our development
- affects our metabolism
- immunity
- cognition
A serious inflammation of the nervous system
Meningitis
A genus of spiral shaped bacteria
Their helical shape helps them penetrate the gelatin like mucus that lines the gastrointestinal tract
Campylobacter
Affected pregnant sheep and cattle causing them to abort
Rarely infects humans
Campylobacter fetus
What is helicobacter pylori?
Found in the stomach
Can cause gastritis and ulcers
Also part of our normal gut flora and plays a critical role in our health
What’s a key step in restoring our missing microbes?
Reduce the overuse of antibiotics in children
Domain of bacteria
Single cell organisms that lack a nucleus
Prokaryotes
Single cells with a nucleus and other organelles that provide building blocks for more complex, multicellular forms of life
Eukaryotes
What are the classes of microbes
Bacteria (prokaryotes)
Archaea
Eukaryotes
Not alive
Propagate by invading and co-opting living cells
Most target bacterial cells
Virus
What is one possible way to treat bacterial diseases in humans
Involves harnessing phages~ viruses that kill bacteria
What is an important feature of microbial life?
They can lurk for long periods of time in small numbers and then spontaneously blood
What do microbes do to make the planet habitable?
Decompose the dead
Convert inert nitrogen in the atmosphere into a form of free nitrogen
Bacteria living stably together
Consortium
Microbes that can form gelatin like layers surrounding themselves
Form thick gels called…
Explains bacterial persistence in harsh circumstances
Biofilms
When does the development of your microbiome begin?
Immediately at the moment of birth
Develops in the first few years of life
Do we all have the same microbiome?
No every creature has coevolved with its own collection of microbes that carry out many metabolic and protective functions
Are microbiomes diverse?
Diversity is critical
High diversity affords protection to all species within the ecosystem because their interactions create robust webs for capturing and circulating resources
What does the loss of diversity do to a microbiome?
Loss of diversity leads to disease or to collapse of the system when keystone species~ones that exert a disproportionately large effect on the environment relative to their abundance~are lost
How many human cells and bacterial cells do we have?
30 trillion human
100 trillion bacterial and fungal
70-90% of all our cells are nonhuman
What are traits that allow microbes to survive in humans?
- ability to survive acidity
- exploit certain foods
- to prefer dry over wet conditions or vice versa
Where do most microbes make their living in humans?
Intestinal tract, beginning from your mouth
Are there more differences in our human genes or microbial genes?
Microbial genes
What is the richest zone in the mouth for microbes?
Gingival crevice, the interface between the tooth and gum
Where does smell/body odor mostly come from?
Mostly microbial in origin
Causes odors in mouth armpits and groin
How does H. Pylori help the body?
Makes acid and hormones
Helps with the state of immunity
Where do the majority of your microbes live?
In the colon
Break down fibers and digest starch
Some of their products feed us (short chain fatty acids)
What do microbes help you do with their products?
- maintain stable blood pressure via specialized receptors located in blood vessels
- metabolize drugs
- make vitamin K, which is needed for blood to clot
How does lactobacilli shield the vagina?
By producing lactic acid, which lowers the pH, making it slightly acidic and less hospitable to pathogens
How do periods affect microbes in the vagina?
- during most of the month- L. inners
- during period-L. Gasseri
What is the most important service your microbes provide?
Immunity
Is based on the microbes that are already in your body, your long term residents, inhibiting outsiders through various mechanisms
Microbial immunity
What is an essential property of your resident organisms?
They resist invaders
How does your diet change your microbes?
It doesn’t much~ a persons gut microbiome is relatively stable
Genes that are routine and necessary for life
Housekeeping genes
Rare microbial species
Can exploit an unusual food chemical that others can’t
Provide genetic protection against threats, such as a new plague
Contingency microbes
Sheds a light on the phenomenon of cooperation
Coevolved systems appear to select for individuals who largely play by the rules
Game theory
