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Microbiology and Parasitology

Instructor : Loren Grace Jaranilla-Anunciado

THE MICROBIAL WORLD AND YOU

 The overall theme of this subject is the relationship between microbes and our lives.
 This relationship involves not only the familiar harmful effects of certain microorganisms, such as
causing disease and spoiling food but also their many beneficial effects.
 In the first part of this subject, some of the many ways microbes affect our lives will be introduced.

WHAT IS MICROBIOLOGY?
 specialized area of biology that deals with living things ordinarily too small to be seen with the unaided
eye

WHAT IS A MICROORGANISM?
 Does not fit into any of the categories in that old question, “Is it animal, vegetable or mineral?”
 Microbes, minute living things that individually are too small to be seen with the unaided eye.

Applications:
 We tend to associate these small organisms only with major diseases such as AIDS, uncomfortable
infections, or such common inconveniences as spoiled food.
 However, the majority of microorganisms make crucial contributions to the welfare of the world’s
inhabitants by helping to maintain the balance of living organisms and chemicals in our environment.

 Microbes are involved in energy and nutrient flow.

o Photosynthesis
o Decomposition
o Humans and many other animals depend on the microbes in their intestines for digestion and the
synthesis of some vitamins that their bodies require, including some B vitamins for metabolism
and vitamin K for blood clotting.
 Commercial applications
o Synthesis of such chemical products as acetone, organic acids, enzymes, alcohols and many
drugs (antibiotics).
o Food industry (vinegar, pickles, alcoholic beverages, soy sauce, buttermilk, cheese, yogurt, bread
o Genetic engineering

 Only a minority of microorganisms are pathogenic (disease-producing)

o Practical knowledge of microbes is necessary for medicine and the related health sciences.
o Hospital workers must be able to protect patients from common microbes that are normally
harmless but pose a threat to the sick and injured.
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NAMING AND CLASSIFYING ORGANISMS

Nomenclature (naming) for organisms

- established by Carolus Linnaeus
- scientific nomenclature assigns each organism two names – the genus is the first name (always
capitalized); the specific epithet (species name) follows (not capitalized)\

 TYPES OF MICROORGANISMS

1. BACTERIA

- Simple, single-celled (unicellular), genetic material is not enclosed in a special nuclear

membrane
- Prokaryotes (pre-nucleus; before nucleus); they have no true nucleus
- Bacillus (rodlike), coccus (spherical or ovoid), spiral (corkscrew or curved)
- Star-shaped; square
- Pairs, chains, clusters; or other groupings
- Enclosed in cell walls that are composed of a substance called peptidoglycan
- Reproduce by dividing into two equal daughter cells (binary fission)
- Nutrition: use organic chemicals from either dead or living organisms
- Some can manufacture their own food; some derived nutrition from inorganic substances
- Can “swim” by using moving appendages called “flagella”

2. ARCHAEA

- consist of prokaryotic cells

- they have cell walls, the walls lack peptidoglycan
- often found in extreme environments
3 main groups:
1. methanogens – produce methane as a waste product from respiration
2. extreme halophiles – live in extremely salty environment (Great Salt Lake, Dead Sea)
3. extreme thermophiles – live in hot sulfurous water such as hot springs at Yellowstone
National Park

3. FUNGI

- eukaryotes (eu-true. True nucleus)

- Cells have a distinct nucleus containing the cell’s genetic material (DNA) surrounded by a
special envelope called the nuclear membrane.
- Unicellular or multicellular
- Mushrooms (look like plants but cannot carry pout photosynthesis), yeasts (unicellular)
- Molds ( most typical fungi) – molds form visible masses called MYCELIA, which are composed
of long filaments (HYPHAE) that branch and interwine.
- The cottony growths sometimes found on bread and fruit are mold mycelia
- Reproduce sexually or asexually
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4. PROTOZOA
- unicellular, eukaryotic
- move by pseudopods, flagella or cilia
- Amoebas
- Have a variety of shapes and live either as free entities or as parasites (organisms that derive their
nutrients from the living hosts)
- Reproduce sexually or asexually

5. ALGAE
- photosynthetic eukaryotes
- cell walls of many algae, like those of plants, are composed of cellulose
- photosynthesizers
- play an important role in the balance of nature

6. VIRUSES
- Very different from the other microbial groups
- So small, electron microscope
- Acellular (not cellular)
- Structurally very simple
- Reproduce only by using the cellular machinery of other organisms

 MULTICELLULAR ANIMAL PARASITES

- multicellular animal parasites are not strictly microorganisms, but they are of medical importance
- during some stages of their life cycle, they are microscopic in size
- two major groups of parasitic worms are flatworms and the round worms (HELMINTHS)

BRIEF HISTORY OF MICROBIOLOGY

 1665 – Robert Hooke – reported to the world that life’s smallest structural units were “little boxes” or
“cells” (with the help of the microscope); cell theory – all living things are composed of cell
 Antoni van Leeuwenhoek – first to observe live microorganisms through magnifying lenses
 People wondered and were asking questions where did these organisms originate
 SPONTANEOUS GENERATION – hypothesis which states that living things arise from nonliving
things
 Francisco Redi – disproved this theory of spontaneous generation, maggots do not arise from decaying
meat
 John Needham – found that even after he heated nutrient fluids (chicken broth and corn broth) before
pouring them into covered flasks, the cooled solutions were soon teeming with microorganisms
 Lazzaro Spalanzani – Italian, microorganisms from the air probably had entered Needham’s solutions
after they were boiled
 Rudolf Virchow – challenged spontaneous generations with the concept of BIOGENESIS (living cells
can arise only from preexisting living cells)
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 Louis Pasteur – demonstrated that microbes are present in the air and can contaminate sterile solutions,
but air itself does not create microbes; microbes can be present in nonliving matter – on solids, in
liquids, in the air; microbes can be destroyed by heat and that methods can be devised to block the
access of airborne microbes to nutrient environments
o These discoveries form the basis of aseptic technique (technique that prevents contamination by
unwanted microorganisms
 One of the key steps that established the relationship between soured. Microbes and disease
occurred when a group of French merchants asked Pasteur to find out why wine and beer soured.
 Fermentation
 Yeast convert sugars to alcohol in the absence of air
 Souring and spoiling is caused by another microorganisms (bacteria) that change alcohol into vinegar
 Pasteurization – solution to the problem of fermentation (spoilage)
 This establishes the relationship between microbes and diseases.
 Germ Theory of Disease – microorganisms might cause disease.
 Theory – difficult to accept – disease is a punishment for an individual’s crimes or misdeeds; blamed
the disease on demons appearing as foul odors.
 People did not believe that microbes can travel through the air and infect plants and animals; or
remain in clothing and bedding to be transmitted from one person to another.
 Ignaz Semmelweis – demonstrated that physicians who did not disinfect their hands transmit infections
from one patient to another
 Joseph Lister – aseptic surgery; carbolic acid kills bacteria; reduces the incidence of infection, surgeons
quickly adopted it.
 Robert Koch – provides proof that bacteria actually cause disease; Bacillus anthracis; Koch’s postulate
 Edward Jenner – experiment to find a way to protect people from smallpox; vaccination; vaccine
(vacca – cow)
 Immunity – protection from disease provided by vaccination (or by recovery from the disease itself)
 Search for substances that could destroy pathogenic microbes
 Chemotherapy – treatment of disease by using chemical substances
 Synthetic drugs, antibiotics
 Paul Ehrlich - salvarsan (against syphilis);
 Antibiotics affect the pathogenic microbes without harming the host
 Alexander Fleming – discover penicillin by accident