Review of Basic Clinical Microbiology Flashcards
What are the benefits associated with microorganisms in pharmacy?
- MFR of: antibiotics, steroids, therapeutic enzymes, polysaccharides, recombinant DNA technology products (like insulin)
- Production of vaccines
- Determination of antibiotic, vitamin, and aa concentration
- Detection of mutagenic or carcinogenic activity
What are the problems associated with microorganisms in pharmacy?
- Contamination of non-sterile and sterile medicines with a risk of infection and/or product deterioration
- Etiological agents of infectious diseases and other diseases (microbes can be reservoirs of antibiotic resistance)
- Cause of pyrogenic reactions (fever) when introduced into the body even in the absence of infection
- Reservoir of antibiotic resistant genes
Virus, viroids, prions, bacteria, fungi, and protozoa comparison: What are the smallest?
Viroids are the smallest. They are only 120-475 nucleotides long.
Virus, viroids, prions, bacteria, fungi, and protozoa comparison: Which lack nucleic acids?
Prions - they are just proteins, derived from host glycoproteins. Mis-folded proteins that replicate slowly by splitting into infectious polymers capable of further lengthening. Length is
Virus, viroids, prions, bacteria, fungi, and protozoa comparison: Which is only made up of RNA?
Viroids are only made up of RNA.
Virus, viroids, prions, bacteria, fungi, and protozoa comparison: Which can be made of DNA or RNA, that could be ds, ss, circular, or linear in nature?
Viruses. They are generally the largest (20-400nm in length).
What do viruses, viroids, and prions have in common?
They cannot replicate and metabolize unless they infect a host cell.
What can viruses infect?
Plants, animals, humans, and even bacteriophages.
Name the virus:
- What contains a capsomere with RNA?
- What contains a capsid built of glycoproteins in a spherical shape?
- What has RNA, a membranous envelope, and glycoproteins?
- What is the mosquito-like guy with DNA?
- Tobacco mosaic virus
- Adenoviruses
- Influenza viruses
- Bacteriophage
What do measles, arbovirus, rabies, Hepatitis A, B, & E, varicella zoster, smallpox, HPV, Rubella, measles, and polio have in common?
They are all viruses causing disease that are vaccine-preventable.
Virus, viroids, prions, bacteria, fungi, and protozoa comparison: Which can be gram(+) or gram (-)?
Bacteria
How are bacteria classified?
By shape (cocci, spiral, bacilli), gram reaction, atmosphere (obligate/micro/facultative aerobes/anaerobes), spores (endospore) and genetic classification (reactions needed for species id).
What is a facultative anaerobe?
A bacteria that can make ATP through aerobic respiration if oxygen is present, but can switch to fermentation or anaerobic respiration if oxygen is absent.
In bacteria, there are multiple ways of classifying, including phenotypically, analytically, and genotypically. With gram-staining, which bacteria will retain the crystal violet color (used before the safranin red) and why?
The gram-positive will retain the crystal violet color, while the gram-negative will be colored red by the safranin. This is because the gram-positive bacteria have a more penetrable cell wall, and so the crystal violet penetrates and stays in the cell, and does not get completely washed away by the decolorizer. Compare that to the gram-negative bacteria, which has an impenetrable cell wall that does not allow the crystal violet into the cell. Therefore, it is washed away when the decolorized is added.
Virus, viroids, prions, bacteria, fungi, and protozoa comparison: What makes fungi distinct from plants and animals?
They are eukaryotes like us (rather than prokaryotic like bacteria), but they can be multinucleate or multicellular. They have a thick cell wall with chitin, and have a 70S ribosome vs an 80S like us.
Virus, viroids, prions, bacteria, fungi, and protozoa comparison: Which has the ability to transform from filamentous moulds to unicellular yeasts as a virulence mechanism? How does temperature play a role?
Fungi. They form hyphae at lower temperatures, and form yeasts at higher temperatures (such as in a host).
Virus, viroids, prions, bacteria, fungi, and protozoa comparison: Which is a one-celled animal found in most habitats?
Protozoa.
Virus, viroids, prions, bacteria, fungi, and protozoa comparison: What agent causes malaria and traveler’s disease as well as toxoplasmosis?
Protozoa.
In protozoa, what are sporozoa, flagellates, amoebae, and ciliates?
This refers to where they dwell and how they move. Sporozoa are intracellular parasites, flagellates move by beating one or more flagella, amoebae move by extending pseudopodia without a fixed shape, and ciliates move by beating many cilia.
What feature does the bacteria Clostridium have?
Endospore.
What has a thick peptidoglycan layer?
Gram-positive bacteria.
What is the purpose of a laboratory diagnostic test, and what are the characteristics of a useful test?
It can be used to demonstrate the presence or absence of a current or past infection (by detecting antibodies).
Characteristics of a useful test would be accurate methods, simple, and affordable for the intended population.
What are the uses of laboratory diagnostic tests?
Patient management when the symptoms don’t point towards a particular diagnosis, screening for asymptomatic infections, surveillance, epidemiological studies, effectiveness of intervention evaluation, and detection of infections with drug-resistant markers.
Diagnosis: What is microscopy, subculture, and sensitivity testing?
Microscopy: Staining, such as gram-staining
Subculture: Have to use very rich media to identify pure growth from single pure colony using biological tests.
Sensitivities: Use discs to diffuse compounds to see what halts spread of colonies. Can see resistance.
