Chapter One Microbiology

Bioremediation

Introducing microbes to an environment to help clean up pollution.

Archaea, Bacteria, Eukarya

Three cells that have appeared in evolutionary history.

Archaea

Single-celled akaryotes that are often found in extreme conditions.

What do thermophiles like?

High temperatures

What do halophiles like?

High Salt

Bacteria

SIngle-celled akaryotes that are diverse metabolically, found in almost every environment, and has a cell wall that contains peptidoglycan.

Fungi

Eukaryotic group of microbes includes, mold, yeast, typically grows of decaying matter, and has a cell wall that contains chitin.

Algae

Eukaryotic group of microbes is photosynthetic, aquatic, has many types including some that have cellulose in their cell walls just like plants.

Protozoans

Single-celled eukaryotic microbes typically lives off of organic material, but can cause diseases like malaria, and are typically classified by how they move. (amoeba, ciliates, flagellates)

Helminths

These microbes are eukaryotic multicellular animals, and typically spend part of their life cycle in microscopic form and are often parasitic.

Viruses

are acellular, obligate intracellular parasites, which are extremely small and include influenza, Covid, and HIV.

Prions

Infectious proteins that cause diseases such as mad cow disease.

When did microscopes become a scientific tool?

1600’s

Robert Hooke

First person to name and describe cells for the first time.

Antonie Van Leeuwenhoek

Dutch fabric merchant who created a microscope powerful enough to see microbes, called them “animalcules”.

Spontaneous Generation

The theory that posited that living things could arise from vital principle.

Francesco Redi

Scientist who used meat in mesh-topped jars to show that maggors did not arise spontaneously.

Swan Neck Flask Experiment

Experiment that disproved spontaneous generation by using flasks with bent necks that allowed air access to the broth but not microbes.

Loius Pasteur

Performed Swan Neck Experiment

Dr. Oliver Wendell Homes + Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis

Critical in establishing the practice of handwashing in medicine.

Joseph Lister

Name of surgeon who established the use of aseptic techniques in surgery by using the antiseptic phenol.

Pasteur

Discovered the role of yeast in fermentation, and the use of limited heat treatment to reduce spoilage in food and beverages.

Robert Koch

Established a series of postulates that can be used to prove a microbes was the cause of disease, which he first did with anthrax, firmly establishing germ theory.

Edward Jenner

Came up with the first vaccination which was used against small pox.

Hans Gram

First to come up with Gram Staining, a critical stain used to identify bacteria that is still used today.

Paul Ehrlich

Discovered a synthetic drug that was used against syphillis which was called salvarsan.

Alexander Flemming

Created first antibiotic penicillin

Rebecca Lancefield

Identified various serotypes in Streptococci species.

Polymerase Chain Reaction

The name of the process that allows for the detection and amplification of small amounts of DNA and RNA.

Small RNA

Type of molecules that were recently discovered to have critical roles in gene regulation.

Microbiome

Started studies in 2010

Malaria

Protozoan disease, spread by mosquitoes, kills about 450,000 people a year.

emerging diseases

New disease in population.

Reemerging diseases

Old diseases that were mainly under control, and now back in population.

medical microbiology

branch of microbiology that deals with microbes that cause disease in humans and animals

public health microbiology

Branches that monitor and control health and the spread of diseases in communities.

Immunology

Science of studying the bodies’ defenses against invading microbes and cancer.

Industrial Microbiology

Branch that safeguards food and water from microbes, and includes technological uses of microbes to produce desired products.

Agricultural Microbiology

Branch concerned with the relationship between microbes and farm and animal crops.

Environmental Microbiology

Branch that examines microbes effects on earth’s habitats.

Taxonomy

Formal system for organizing, classifying, and naming living things.

Nomenclature

The assignment of scientific names to taxonomic categories and organisms.

Classification

Arranging of organisms into a hierarchy of taxa (categories).

Binomial system

Two-name system of assigning a scientific name.

Four Eukaryotic Kingdoms

Plants, Animals, fungi, protista