BIO 2100 UNIT 1 STUDY GUIDE

OUTCOMES:

1. RECOGNIZE HISTORICAL ADVANCES IN MICROBIOLOGY

2. RECONGNIZE IMPORTANCE OF MICROBIOLOGY
3. COMPARE THE MAJOR GROUPS OF MICROORGRANISMS
4. INTERPRET THE BASIC METHODS USED IN MICROBIOLOGY

Readings

Chapter 1, An Invisible World: 1-39

Chapter 2, How we see the Invisible World: 43-84

Chapter 3, The Cell: 89-98

Chapter 15, How Pathogens Cause Disease: 669-671

 History of Microbiology (USLO 1.1)

VOCABULARY

1. Cell theory-the fundamental component of life and cells give rise to other cells
2. Simple microscope – light passes through a single lens
3. Compound microscope – light passes through two sets of lenses
4. Spontaneous generation – theory that life arises from nonliving matter
5. Biogenesis – generation of living matter from other living matter
6. Symbiotic relationship – close physical relationship between two or more dissimilar
organisms

 Cell theory – cells are basic unit of life

 3 tenets
 Tenet 1: living organisms are made up of one or more cells
 Tenet 2: living cells arise from pre-existing cells
 Tenet 3: cells are the fundamental unit of structure and function of
living organisms
 Hooke – beginning of cell theory. The first to observe cells (called them
little boxes = cells)
 Virchow – popularized cell theory by stating that cells give rise to other
pre-existing cells (biogenesis)
 Van Leeuwenhoek – first to observe bacteria and protozoa (microbes).
Called them animalcules
 Spontaneous generation vs. Biogenesis
 Spontaneous generation – old idea that life can come from non-living
matter (such as maggots growing on rotting meat and frogs appearing on
muddy river banks) (refuted by Redi and Pasteur)
 Biogenesis – generation of life comes from pre-existing life
 Pasteur – refuted spontaneous generation using the swan neck flask
experiment. Associated airborne microorganisms and food spoilage
 Redi – Italian physician, 17th century. Experiment with maggots on meat.
Meat in a sealed container that did not come into contact with flies did not
generate maggots. Refutes spontaneous generation

 Endosymbiotic theory
 Symbiosis is a relationship between organisms
 The endosymbiotic theory states that mitochondria and chloroplasts
arose as prokaryotic cells establishing a symbiotic relationship within a
eukaryotic host
  Relationship between Microbiology and Medicine (USLO 1.2)

Vocabulary:
 Germ theory of disease
 The germ theory of disease states that many diseases may result from
microbial infection. The work of several scientists and physicians
contributed to the germ theory of disease linking microbes to the spread of
the disease
 Joseph Lister – (Listerine) proposed that microbes can result in infection,
investigated this phenomenon in post-operative care. Introduced the use of
disinfectants and antiseptics in surgery. Developed procedures for
adequately caring for surgical wounds and sterilizing surgical equipment
 Ignaz Semmelweis – observed that midwives washed hands and maternity
wards didn’t have as many infections as wards where non-handwashing
medical students were working. He introduced the idea of handwashing to
prevent the transfer of disease from physicians to patients. Infection (1%
puerperal fever) caused by unwashed hands between autopsies and live
patients

 Koch’s Postulates
 Robert Koch – first scientist that established a protocol that connects the
causative microbe to an infection (Koch’s postulates). Was studying
Bacillus anthracis (Anthrax) in cows
 Established the idea of one microbe causes one disease
 Koch’s postulates method – 4 steps
♦ The suspected pathogen must be found in every case of
disease and not be found in healthy individuals
 ♦ The suspected pathogen can be isolated and grown in pure
culture
♦ A healthy test subject infected with the suspected pathogen
must develop the same signs and symptoms of disease as
seen in postulate
♦ The pathogen must be re-isolated from the new host and
must be identical to the pathogen from postulate 2

 Concept of chemotherapy
 Chemotherapy – refers to any use of chemicals or drugs to treat disease. It
may involve medications that target cancerous cells or tissues, but also
antimicrobial drugs. use of a small molecule that has antimicrobial
properties to treat disease
 Pathogen – microbe that causes diseases
 Normal flora – microbe that resides symbiotically with host. Most
likely benefits the host somehow
 Alexander Fleming – accidentally discovered penicillin (first natural
antibiotic) by observing the growth of bacteria on plates contaminated
with mold. Mold prevented bacterial growth, thus was the source of
penicillin.
 True/natural antibiotic is a natural antibacterial compound
produced by fungi or other bacteria and act against other microbes
  Semi-synthetic antibiotic derivatives of natural antibiotics that
increase bacterial range and stability but with reduced toxicity. It is
a chemically modified true antibiotic
 Synthetic drugs are chemotherapeutic agents prepared from
chemicals in a laboratory
 Synthetic antimicrobials are drugs developed from man made
chemicals or those not found in nature
 Paul Ehrlich – focused on discovering or synthesizing chemicals capable
of killing pathogenic microorganisms and reducing adverse affects on
patients. Developed systematic screening process to test arsenic-
containing compounds for antimicrobial properties. developed chemicals
that would kill microbes without harming humans
 Selective toxicity is to the pathogen but not our human cells. Must
understand the human and pathogen structure to understand the
toxicity effects on each. Cell walls are absent in humans
 Sahachiro Hata – influential in discovery of compound 606, an
antimicrobial agent that proved to be an effective treatment for (treponema
pallidum) in syphilis patients

 Binomial nomenclature: How to write a scientific name (USLO 1.3)

*Microorganisms differ in size, structure, habitat, metabolism, and characteristics*

Vocabulary:
 Taxonomy – science of naming and classifying living organisms
 Carolus Linnaeus – father of taxonomy “Systema Naturae”
 Binomial nomenclature – standardized naming system. two-word naming system
with the following rules
 First word is called the Genus, and the first letter is always capitalized
 Second word is called the specific epithet
 All letters italicized
 Example - human:
 Homo sapiens Homo (genus) + sapien (epithet)
 Example – microbe:
 Escherichia coli bacteria (E.coli) Escherichia (genus) + coli (epithet)
 Genus is always written first and always capitalized. Species is
always written second. The genus and species must be italicized
(underlined if handwritten). Important to follow the specific rules
for naming organisms in order to ensure consistency and eliminate
confusion when discussing particular organisms
 Animal, plant and mineral
 8 levels of classification (largest to smallest)
  DOMAIN, KINGDOM, PHYLUM, CLASS, ORDER, FAMILY,
GENUS, SPECIES
 Anthony Edward Walsby
 Haloquadratum walsbyl, saltwater environment and arrangement
of the organism. Halo is greek for “salt” and “quadratum”
represents a square arrangement of the bacteria

 Three domains of life (ring of life)

 Domain is the broadest category in taxonomy. The three domains are:
 Archaea – prokaryotic with pseudopeptidoglycan cell walls and
many live in extreme environments
 Bacteria – prokaryotic with peptidoglycan cell walls
 Eukarya – eukaryotic cells with a nucleus and membrane bound
organelles
 Major groups of microorganisms and biodiversity
 Acellular (viruses, viroids, and prions)
♦ Virus – made of nucleic acids and proteins (called capsid)
♦ Viroids – infectious circular RNA
♦ Prion – infection proteins, common pathology from prion is
degradation of affected tissue giving sponge-like
appearance
 Prokaryotic (eubacteria and archaea)
♦ Bacteria – prokaryotic (lack a nucleus), no organelles,
peptidoglycan in cell wall with lipopolysaccharides, grow
in moderate environments and found widely across the
planet
♦ Archaea – prokaryotic, lack a nucleus,
pseudopeptidoglycan in cell wall, many times found in
extreme environments) high heat, methane gas, sulfur gas,
etc.)
 Eukaryotic (algae, fungi, protozoa, Helminths)
♦ Algae – single celled (but grow in a variety of colonies),
photosynthetic
♦ Protozoa – single celled animal like organism, classified by
motility (flagella, cilia, etc.)
♦ Fungi – yeasts and molds, chitin in cell wall, some single
cell examples, but most are multi-cellular, decomposers
 ♦ Helminths – worms, multicellular organisms, produce eggs
to transmit between hosts
 Kingdoms in the domain Eukarya
♦ Protista – contains protozoa and algae
♦ Fungi – contains molds and yeast
♦ Plantae – contains plants (not really covered in Micro)

 Basic microbiological methods (USLO 1.4)

Vocabulary
 Microscopy techniques and their uses
 Magnification vs. Resolution
 Magnification – the ability to enlarge the image of an object
 Resolution – the ability to distinguish separate structures and
features
 Brightfield – the brightfield microscope is the most commonly used type
of microscope. It is a compound microscope with two or more lenses that
produce a dark image on a bright background. Can be used to view
live specimen
 Darkfield – a darkfield microscope is a brightfield microscope that has a
small but significant modification to the condenser that results in an image
that shows bright objects on a dark background. Can be used to view
live specimen
 Phase contrast – phase contrast microscopes use refraction and
interference to create high-contrast, high-resolution images without
staining.
  Fluorescent – a fluorescence microscope uses fluorescent chromophores
which are capable of absorbing energy from a light source then
emitting this energy as visible light which creates contrast
 Electron microscope – electron microscopes (EM) use short wavelength
electron beams rather than light to increase magnification and resolution.
The two basic types of EM are the transmission electron microscope
(TEM: viewing subcellular structures) and the scanning electron
microscope (SEM: viewing surface cellular structures)
 Standard units of measure used in Microbiology
 Unit conversions (micrometers, nanometers)
 1 micrometer = 1,000 nanometer
 1 nanometer = 0.001 micrometer
 Microbial staining techniques
 Simple stains – use a single dye to visualize cell shape and arrangement
 Differential stains – use multiple dyes
 Gram-stain – differentiate cells based on cell wall
♦ Gram+ - thick outer cell wall of peptidoglycan
♦ Gram- -thin cell wall of peptidoglycan covered by outer
membrane
♦ Procedure (see image below)
 Mordant - is iodine, which fixes crystal violet to peptidoglycan in
cell wall. Mordant doesn’t work in the case of Gram- cells. Thus,
alcohol decolorization removes outer membrane and any crystal
violet
 Acid fast stain – it is able to differentiate two types of gram-
positive cells: those with a waxy mycolic acid in their walls
(mycobacteria) and those that do not
♦ Procedure:
 1. stain with carbolfuchsin (red)
 2. decolorize non-acid fast bacteria with alcohol
 3. counterstain with the kinyoun stain (blue)
♦ Capsule stain – stains capsule if present
 Difficult to perform because capsule doesn’t
really absorb dyes. Must use mordant (positive
stain) or stain background (negative stain)
 “stained” capsule appears as halo around bacterial
cell
♦ Endospore staining – detects endospores which allow for
survival in adverse conditions
 Malachite green is applied to stain spores and then
heat treatment to allow dye to penetrate cell
 After washing, a counterstain of safranin is
applied to stain cell red/pink around endospore
♦ Flagella staining
 It is a tedious process of using mordant and
carbolfuchsin to build the diameter of the
flagellum until it is visible