Naming and Classifying Microbes

Question 1

taxonomy

Answer 1

-science of classifying/naming biological organisms

Question 2

phylogeny

Answer 2

-study of the evolutionary relationships between different organisms

Question 3

how do taxonomoists make classifications

Answer 3

-genotype, phenotype and phylogenetic information

Question 4

what do microbes increasingly use to dictate taxonomy

Answer 4

-phylogeny less and less phenotype

Question 5

taxonomy

Answer 5

domain = did
kingdom = king
phylum = phillip
class = come
order = over
family = for
genus = great
species = soup

Question 6

who invented taxonomy

Answer 6

carl linnaeus
-created a system for classficiation to minimize chaos define structure to be used when new species are discovered

Question 7

two names of an organism

Answer 7

-the genus and species

Question 8

what do scientific names derive from

Answer 8

-may be descriptive of characteristics
-may honour a scientist
-might describe physical properties or appearance

Question 9

logistics of scientific names and writing about them

Answer 9

-must be italicised of underlines
-genus is capatalized and species is lower case
-higher taxa are not italized they are captilized
-after the first use in a paper names are abbreviated with the first letter plus the species name

Question 10

subspecies

Answer 10

-esssentially just the next finer classficiation after species

Question 11

biovar

Answer 11

-grouping based on physiological or biochemical difference from other members of the species

Question 12

serovar or serotype

Answer 12

-grouping based on surface antigens

Question 13

other naming systems

Answer 13

-sometimes strains can be lumped together based on an important feature

Question 14

strain

Answer 14

-genetic variant or subtype. often used to refer to a specific isolate - isolate a new strain give it a name to identify it

Question 15

how does taxonomy help

Answer 15

-lumps together similar organisms with similar traits
-can allow us to communicate more effectiveky and to make educated gueses about newly discovered organisms

Question 16

phylogenetic trees

Answer 16

-visual means of showing predicted evolutionary relationships between different organisms

Question 17

how to compare phylogenetic relationships

Answer 17

-compare DNA sequences that are conserved amogst all organisms being compared
-more difference in DNA sequence = more evolutionary distance
-highly conswerved genes with a highly conserved function that accumulate mutations slowly over time

Question 18

Determining phylogenetic relation SSU rRNA sequencing

Answer 18

-ribosome is conserved of all organisms on earth
-small subunit of ribosome is commonly sequenced to innfer phylogenetic relationships
-variable regions useful for identifying relationships
-conserved regions are useful for PCR

Question 19

the woese tree of life

Answer 19

-iniversal tree of life based on nucleotide sequence similarity in rRNA
-genealogy of all life on earth
-established in the presence of three domains of life bacteria, archea, eukarya

Question 20

16S rDNA to identify and classify bacteria

Answer 20

-isolate genomic DNA
-Use PCR primers that bind highly conserved regions of 16S rDNA
-PCR amplify and sequence 16S rDNA
-PCR remainder

Question 21

how do you increase power of sequencing to build phylogenetic trees

Answer 21

-compare sequences of multiple conserved genes

Question 22

phylogenetic trees limiations

Answer 22

-phylogenetic trees are predictions
-horizontal gene transfer can confuse things
-acquired DNA can undergo homologous recombination
-selective pressure causes mutations at different rates