Topic 1 Microbial World Flashcards
What is microbiology
The study of how microbes interact with humans and food amd how we can use them. They are the basis for molecular biology & biotechnology
What is the difference between microbes & microorganisms
Microbes include viruses, eukaryotes,bacteria & archaea while microorganisms dont include viruses
Why are viruses not considered microorganisms and what are there functions
Viruses are not considered micro organisms because they are considered not living ; there function included replication and evolving but this is only because they have nucleic acids but they do not function like typical cellular organisms ; they are not consider alive because they need a host cell without one they are just particles
What are prokaryotes and what consists of them?
Prokaryotes meaning before kernal ; they have no nucleus and consists of bacteria and archaea
What are eukaryotes and what consists of them ?
Eukaryotes meaning “true kernel” are cells with a nucleus and the consists of protozoa, algae and fungi
what is the difference between micro and marco organisms
Micro has both euk and pro : pro has bacteria and archaea , euk have protozoa,fungi and algae. Marco has no pro, only euk which consist of animals and plants
Who is Robert hooke and what were his contributions to microbio
Robert hook invented microscopes to be able to see microorganism, he allowed the first description for a microbe , which was molds “fungi” a eukaryote
Who is the father of microbiology and what were their contributions ?
The father of microbiology is antonie van leeh…. He improved the lenses significantly and allowed the first description for bacteria
Give 5 reasons why studying microbiology is important?
Microbes were the first life on earth (3.8 billion years)
Microbes established the biosphere conditions creating aerobic respiration (O2)
Allowed multicellular organisms to evolve
Multicellular Eukaryotic Organisms (metazoans) 1 billions years
Helps produce enzymes for industrial and medical use (insulin)
What are the 6 core feature of microbes ?
Metabolism
Growth
Reproduction
Genetic Variation/Evolution
Response/Adaptation
Homeostasis
What is metabolism in a microbe ?
The breathing and breaking down; controlled sets of chemical reactions which take energy and nutrients from the environment and create new biological material
What is growth in a microbe ?
A increase of mass in biological material
What is reproduction in a microbe ?
Production of new copies of an organism
What is genetic variation/evolution?
Genetic variation is changes in the DNA in a population through natural selections over generations
What is responding / adaptation
Responding to an external stimuli and adaption to local environment ( genetic and physiological constraints)
What is homeostasis ?
It is the active regulation of an internal environment to maintain constancy and balance
What are the 2 things that help microbes get organic molecules ?
Heterotroph
Autotroph
What are the difference between auto and heteo troph
Auto are self eating and produce organic molecules from inorganic carbon ; Heterotrophs are ‘eating others’ they eat other organic moleules
How do microbes get their energy ?
Organic Matter that is broken down
What is the simplest way to get energy and what are your products and reactants ?
The simplest way is glycolysis using glucose and producing pyruvate and 2 ATP
Breaking down pyruvate with no oxygen what is that method and what does it produce
Its called fermentation and its produces lactate or ethanol & CO2
Using Oxygen and breaking down pyruvate what is it called and what do you produce?
Its called aerobic respiration and you produce H2O & CO2 or Up to 36 ATP
How do microbes help with biogeochemical cycling
Microbes can come together as they are interacting with the environment to harvest atp and start a biogeochemical cycle which turns inorganic molecules to organic molecules and back to inorganic molecules and so on
What tends to be inside a microbe
Marcomolecules
How many types of marcomolecules are there and what are they ?
There are 4 macromolecules and they are lipids, polysaccharides, nucleic acids and polypeptides
What does polypeptide consist of and what is their functions
Polypeptides consists of amino acids ( proteins) and the proteins can fold into structures and some proteins can act as enzymes and catalyze chemical reactions within the cell. They can also help with movement of materials in and out of the cell.
What does nucleic acid consist of and what are there functions ?
Nucleic acids consist of deoxyribonuclitides and ribnucletides ; the DNA has function of information, it provides instructions to help assemble and also producing RNA . For RNA it mainly produces proteins and has catalytic and structural function.
What are lipids and what are their functions
Lipids are diverse structures and they have a key functions of forming the plasma membrane of a cell . The help with metabolism and cell growth as they capture and concentrate nutrients
What are poly saccharides and what are they made up of and what are their functions ?
Polysaccharides are sugars made up of carbon hydrogen and oxygen . They have structural and energy storing functions. The structural functions are chitin ( fungi walls) and cellulose ( plant walls). The energy storing functions is by glucose and starch.
What is the order of abundance for macromolecules in a cell
Polypeptides
Nucleic Acids (DNA is the smallest)
Lipids
Polysaccharides
What is the the phylogenetic tree made up out of and who created it and what is it based on?
The tree has 3 domains archaea, bacteria , eukarya its was made by Carl Woese and its based on RNA sequences
What featured make SSU rRNA gene sequences ideal for phylogentic sequences
They are in every cell
Have the same function
Ability to not change much bc when mutated it had negative effects which not much changes get passed on to the next generation ; meaning old sequence can still be there
What are the 7 key facts about early earth
There was little to no oxygen in the atmosphere
The atmosphere was reducing has reducing agents and alot of elctrons
High amounts of gases in the atmosphere
High temperatures >100 c
Earth surface was a chemical soup
Synthesis of first macromolecules
Energy from various sources (UV light)
What 6 gases and molecules made up earth at the time
H2, N2, CH4,NH3,CO2, H20
How were macromolecules proposed to come to and what other function did it have at the time ?
When the gaseous mixtures were exposed to radiation it spark the formation of organic maromolecules , these macromolecules at the time may have had the ability to polymerize ; able to make polypeptides and other polymers
Who tested the primordial soup macromolecules theory ?
Stanley miller recreated and got noticeably amino acids
Whar 3 things did you need to be able to live in early earth
Ability to catalyze
Genetic information storage
Cell wall ; ability to separate interior and exterior
Can life solely exist with RNA (riboenzymes), if so why what functions do they have that allow survival ?
Yes life can solely exist with just RNA as they have functions of self replicating , can act as a cataylst for chemical rxn and they can store genetic information
What are micelles and how can they help with early life?
Micelles are a groups of lipids in a encirclement within a solutions they can also become a bi layer which could of been the early formation of the plasma membrane
When was RNA world , who created the theory , and what is it proposing overall?
RNA world occurred prior to LUCA , the theory was conceived by Carl Woese , the rna world propose that rna was synthesized from the sterile soup before DNA and created DNA and then the central dogma after continuously failing and succeeding.
What is the order of RNA world?
Sterile Earth
RNA
Self Replicating -Copy of RNA
Bounds membrane vesicle taking copy of RNA - coding and catalyzing
Protein synthesis whch took catalyst functions
DNA from RNA
Central Dogma (DNA - RNA -PROTEINS)
What does carl woese call the first living organism to arise from RNA world ?
Progenote
Why are double stranded DNA better than RNA
Genetic back up copy
More stable than RNA bc its 2 strands instead of 1 single strand
What does LUCA stand for and what is it ?
LUCA is the Last universal common ancestor and it is where bacteria , archaea and eukarya came from
What are the 8 factors luca must have
N2 Fixing (high N2 [ ] early earth
CO2 Eating
Thermophile (love heat)
H2 dependent
Anerobe ( little to no oxygen early earth )
Must have cell membrane
Using ATP as chemical energy
Central Dogma ( DNA- RNA- PROTEIN N)
What is the process of modern RNA ?
DNA (Replication)
Transcription
RNA
Translation
Polypeptides (Amino Acids (Proteins))
What is mRNA and what is its function?
Messenger RNA is the RNA used when translating into proteins and is the mrna dna is transcribed to
What is tRNA and what is it s functions ?
Transfer RNA transfers amino acids to ribosomes
What is rRNA and what is it functions?
Ribosomal RNA helps with the structure of ribsomes and is composed of proteins
Helps catalyze peptide bond formation
How and when do we know when microbes first came to and how they dominated prior to eukaryotes?
We know micrbobes have been on earth for over 3.6 billion years and we know this bc of stomalities containing cyanobacteria fossils.
How were organism able to move past hydrothermal vents?
For quite a few years microbes were stuck at hydrothermal vents only using the CO2 around as an accepter and turning it into bio mass ( autotrophic) and as you want to move way from hydrothermal vents you need to figure out a way to use the oxygen as there is no hydrogen or methane when moving away.
The ancestors of cyanobacteria were able to figure that out by being photosynthetic using the CO2 and just enough light to take electrons from water they were able to turn that into oxygen as a toxic by product and energy
What are the two way you can see a microbial genome?
mutation and phylogeny
What is mutations and why is it important
Mutation is a heritable change in the genome is important for genetic variation/evolution
How are mutations achieved?
errors made in replication
Physical or chemical damage done to DNA
What is the order of mutations?
Alter genetic info - alter mRNA - production of different proteins in cells - alter phenotype
What is phylogeny?
The study and comparison of genomes to each other across domains
What are 2 key things of phylogeny ?
Genetic material can transfered between different domains
The exchange of materials allows us to create a tree of all living organism
Adopting features of of genome from other domains ( mitochondria & chloroplast)
What is the Endosymbiotic theory?
This theory covers the origin of eukaryotes it claims that ancient prokaryotes ate other microbes which started a symbiotic relationship and formed the first basis of eukaryotes
Were the first photosynthetic organism anoxygenic ?
Yes they were an oxygenic bc they didnt product oxygen
What caused earth to go from anoxic to oxic and what did the cause lead to ?
The physiology of prokaryotes allowed for earth to transition from anoxic to oxic and this led to metazoans and aerobic metabolism evolution
What changed the dominant gaseous atmosphere to our now know oxygen atmosphere ?
The ancestors of cyanobacteria allowed for the o2 atmosphere and more oxygenic photosynthesis that later came to
What did people think of microbes back then ?
They thought microbes were bad air
And that they arose from non living matter
What were the 7 contributions that Louis Pasteur provided ?
That Living organism discriminate against optical isoemers
Biological nature of alchol fermentation
Vaccines for anthrax, fowl chlora,rabies
Pasteurization
Sanitization in hospitals
Disproved spontaneous generation
Methods for controlling growth of microbes
How did Louis Pasteur disproved disproves spontaneous generation ?
Using a swan flask Louis Pasteur put in nutrients broth and boiled it to sterilize it, then he left it there for days and nothing happened to the flask even though it was with ht outside air until he tipped it over and the broth got in contact with with microbes and then then after few hours and days the microbes replicated
What were Robert koch 3 mains contributions?
Finding that bacillus anthracis cause anthrax and that mycobacterium causes tuberculosis
What is koch’s postulates and what is the order ?
Kochs postulate is used to find the microbe which is causing the disease
The order is:
Get diseased animals that all have the suspected microbe and healthy ones that don’t
Obtain a pure culture of the microbe
Throw it into a healthy animal without the disease , see if it get ill
Be able to get back that microbe from diseased animals
How were Kochs postulates able to help with gastric ulcers ?
In the 1980 researches isolated the microbe helicobacter pylori which caused the stomach ulcers and using koch postulates it was
What were the 2 big disease back in the days
Black plague & spanish flu
What were the top 3 diseases in the 1900
Influenza & Pneumonia
Tuberculosis
Gasterentisis
What are the top 3 disease in the 2000s
Heart disease
Cancer
Pulmary disease
What are 6 key things to prevent infection
Sanitization
Personal hygiene
Vaccines
Antispectics
Food/water safety
Antibiotics
What domains have nuclear membranes
Eukarya
What domains have membrane bound organelles
All eukarya have them while they are rare for both bacteria and archaea
What about plasma membranes in domains ?
Both bacteria and eukarya have similar plasma membranes while archaea is very different
What about cell wall among the three domains?
Both bacteria and Archaea have cell wall in most of there species , bacteria cell wall is made up of peptidoglycan and archaea cell wall is made of a various material while eukarya has cell walls in some species and just like archaea their cell wall is made from various materials.
What about RNA Polymerase in the three domains ?
Both bacteria and archaea have a single polymerase and archaea single polymerase is similar to eukarya RNA Pol 2
Eukarya has 3 RNA POL I, II AND III
What about histones in the domains ?
Only archaea and eukarya have histones as bacteria has histones like protein
What are the 6 characteristics of three domains
Histone
Cell wall
Membrane bound Organelles
Plasma membrane
RNA Polymerase
Nuclear Membrane
