BIO2060 - MicroBio - Exam #1

1. What are the six groups of microbes? What are their general characteristics such as the presence of nucleus, cell wall, plasma membrane, organelles, etc.? Which are alive or not?

The six groups are: bacteria, archaea, fungi, protozoa, algae, and viruses.

Prokaryotes include bacteria and archaea which have no nucleus and single stranded DNA.

Eukaryotes include fungi, protozoa, and algae which have a nucleus, organelles, and double stranded DNA. Viruses are the only microbe listed that are not considered alive.

2. What is the size of typical bacteria cells? Archaea? Virus sizes?

Bacteria and archaea are typically 1-10 micrometers in size. Viral particles can be 10-100 nanometers

3. What are the 4 macromolecules of cells and what are their functions?

Polypeptides (Amino Acids):

• enzymes are catalysts

• structural components

Nucleic acids (DNA + RNA):

• DNA - instructions for replication and assembly

• RNA - produce polypeptides

  • catalysts for rxns

  • structure

Lipids:

• cell and organelle membranes

• separates inside of cell from outside

• protective/ selective barrier

Polysaccharides (sugars):

• structure

• energy storage

4. What are the timeline and sequence of events related to early discoveries in microbiology?

Who are some of the prominent scientists involved in these discoveries (e.g., germ theory of disease, disproval of spontaneous generation, endosymbiotic theory, etc.)?

5. What are the general characteristics of each of the 3 Domains? What are their hypothesized disease relationships?

6. Woese’s phylogeny is based on which gene sequences and why are those genes important?

SSU and 16S rRNA sequences

7. Why are viruses not considered to be alive?

8. What are the timeline and sequence of events related to early life development on Earth (starting from 4.5 billion years ago)? Particularly focus on origin of life, what were the earliest cells, what is endosymbiosis and how does it relate to the evolution of eukaryotic cells, what cells drove the anoxic to oxic transition.

9. What is the “RNA World” hypothesis? What is the Miller-Urey experiment?

10. What are the different shapes of prokaryotic cells?

11. What are the differences in cell wall and plasma membrane among Bacteria, Archaea, and Eukarya? What are: hopanoids, isoprenoids, bactoprenol, transpeptidase, peptidoglycan, crosslinking, monolayer, ether vs ester linkage, pseudomurein, etc.?

12. What is the chemical structure of peptidoglycan, chitin, cellulose, and pseudomurein? How are they similar/different?

13. How are bacterial cells similar/different to eukaryotes? How are bacterial cells similar/different to archaea? How are bacterial cells unique?

14. What are the differences between G+ and G- cell walls? What are the unique components in each?

15. What is the structure and composition of the bacterial outer membrane?

16. How does Gram staining work (know each of the steps) and what is its purpose?

17. What is a protoplast? Lysozyme? β-lactamase?

18. How do β-lactam antibiotics and lysozymes affect bacterial cells?

19. How do nutrients cross the plasma membrane? Which nutrient transporters require energy from ATP? Which nutrient transporters require energy from the electrochemical gradient?

20. How do nutrients cross the bacterial cell wall?

21. What is the type 3 secretion system?

22. How do bacterial flagella move? Energy source? What is chemotaxis?

23. How are flagella in Eukarya, Archaea, and Bacteria different?

What are the chemical composition and function of: inclusion bodies, carboxysomes, magnetosomes, capsules, S-layer, pili/fimbriae, sex pilus, nucleoid, endospore, gas vesicles, cytoskeleton proteins such as FtsZ, MreB, and ParM, etc.?

25. What is the role of signal peptides in bacteria and signal sequences in eukaryotes?

26. What are extremophiles and what are some examples from Archaea?

27. What are histones?

28. What are some adaptations extremophilic archaea have to deal with high temps and high salinity?

29. How are archaea cells similar/different to eukaryotes? How are archaea cells similar/different to bacteria cells? How are archaea unique?

30. What are the general functions of major eukaryotic organelles?

31. Where does replication, transcription, and translation take place in eukaryotic vs prokaryotic cells?

32. What are the different structures and shapes of viruses? Different types of symmetry?

33. Why is viral taxonomy challenging?

34. What are the three main hypotheses for how viruses evolved?

35. What is virion, capsid, envelope, nucleocapsid? What are the characteristics of the viral genome?

36. What are viroids?

37. What are prions? What diseases involve prions?