Microbes in Our Lives - Vocabulary Flashcards

Vocabulary flashcards covering key terms and concepts from the Microbes in Our Lives lecture.

Biofertilizers

Substances containing living microorganisms that promote plant growth by increasing the supply or availability of primary nutrients.

Anabaena azollae

An example of an organism classified as a biofertilizer.

Pseudomonas fluorescens

An example of a bacterial species used as a biofertilizer.

Type I Diabetes

An autoimmune disease that results from the destruction of beta cells, which produce insulin.

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD)

A rapidly progressive, invariably fatal neurodegenerative disorder believed to be caused by an abnormal isoform of a cellular glycoprotein known as the prion protein.

Prion protein

An abnormal isoform of a cellular glycoprotein that is believed to cause Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD).

CRISPR

Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats; repetitive DNA sequences observed in bacteria with spacer DNA sequences in between that match viral sequences.

Cas

CRISPR-associated nucleases (proteins that cleave DNA) that are guided by RNA to cut viral DNA.

Cas9

A CRISPR-associated nuclease, referred to as molecular scissors, that cuts targeted DNA sequences during gene editing.

CAR-T Therapy

Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-cell Therapy, a treatment in which T cells are genetically engineered to express a chimeric antigen receptor that recognizes specific types of cancer.

Leukapheresis

A process in which blood is drawn from a patient, T-cells are separated out, and the rest of the blood is returned to the body.

Human Microbiome

A group of microbes—including archaea, bacteria, fungi, and viruses—that live stably on or inside the human body.