Exam 1 - Lecture 1

Question 1

match the following:

a.) cellular
b.) acellular

1.) nonliving
2.) living, have metabolic functions

Answer 1

a2.) cellular are living and have metabolic functions

b1.) acellular are nonliving

Question 2

what are the four types of acellular organisms?

Answer 2

viruses
viroids
satellites
prions

Question 3

what is the main difference between prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells?

Answer 3

prokaryotes do not have a membrane delimited nucleus, eukaryotes always do

Question 4

what are the three domains of life (what are LUCA’s first few descendants)?

Answer 4

bacteria
archaea
eukarya

Question 5

what is the three domain system based off of?

Answer 5

it’s based on a comparison of rRNA genes

Question 6

what do cyanobacteria produce?

Answer 6

large amounts of oxygen

Question 7

what two categories can eukarya be split into?

Answer 7

protists and fungi

Question 8

what microbes need a host cell to replicate?

Answer 8

viruses

Question 9

how old is the oldest fossil on earth, and what was it?

Answer 9

a 3.5 byr old microbe fossil named Swartkoppie chert

Question 10

what was the earliest molecule on earth?

Answer 10

• RNA

Question 11

the earliest cells might have been RNA surrounded by ___________

Answer 11

liposomes

Question 12

what ribonucleotide is a currency for energy?

Answer 12

adenosine 5’ triphosphate

Question 13

what is the endosymbiotic hypothesis? what two organelles are hypothesized to have come from this theory?

Answer 13

• bacteria were engulfed by larger cells and the bacteria became the organelles
• mitochondria and chloroplasts

Question 14

what do mitochondria and chloroplasts contain that supports the endosymbiotic theory?

Answer 14

DNA/RNA

Question 15

how long is 16S rRNA?

what are its roles?

Answer 15

• 1500 bp long
• has a structural role as scaffolding for ribosomal proteins

Question 16

if there are many variable regions between two species’ 16S rRNA, what does this mean?

Answer 16

they are distantly related species

Question 17

who’s LUCA?

Answer 17

the Last Universal Common Ancestor

Question 18

which two of the following share a common ancestor?

bacteria
archaea
eukaryotes

Answer 18

archaea and eukaryotes. they evolved independently of bacteria

Question 19

bacteria and archaea increase their gene pool through ____________ gene transfer

Answer 19

horizontal gene transfer

Question 20

which mode of gene transfer can lead to increased antibiotic resistance: horizontal or vertical?

Answer 20

horizontal

Question 21

who was the first person to observe microbes?

Answer 21

Antony van Leeuwenhoek

Question 22

what is the hypothesis of spontaneous generation?

Answer 22

that microbes can develop from nonliving or decomposing matter (which is incorrect)

Question 23

how did Louis Pasteur disprove the spontaneous generation theory?

Answer 23

through his “Swan-neck flask” experiments

Question 24

what were the Swan-neck flask experiments?

Answer 24

• Pasteur had nutrient broth flasks, and he boiled them to kill all of the microbes (pasteurization)
• in one Swan-neck, he broke the neck and microbes were able to enter and grow in the flask
• in another, he left the neck alone and no growth occurred because all of the microbes were stuck at the base of the neck

Question 25

what was the Miasma theory?

Answer 25

that disease was caused by foul air, bad smells, supernatural forces, imbalances of the 4 bodily humors

Question 26

what are (Robert) Koch’s postulates?

Answer 26

criteria by which a microorganism can be linked to a certain disease

• the microorganism must present in the diseased and absent in the healthy
• the microorganism can be isolated and grown in a culture
• the same disease occurs when the microorganism is moved to a healthy host
• the same microorganism must be able to be isolated from the new host again

Question 27

what are some of the problems with Koch’s postulates?

Answer 27

• ethics
• asymptomatic diseases
• not everything can be isolated and grown in the lab
• co-infection

Question 28

what is taxonomy and what are the three parts to it?

Answer 28

the science of biological classification

• classification
• nomenclature
• identification

Question 29

what are the taxonomic ranks in order from highest to lowest?

Answer 29

domain
phylum
class
order
family
genus
species
(subspecies)

Question 30

what is the binomial nomenclature system?

Answer 30

Genus and species, genus is capitalized, species is lowercase, and everything is italicized

Question 31

when can Escherichia coli be abrreviated?

Answer 31

after the first mention of its name

Question 32

what is the correct formatting for protein names?

how about genes?

Answer 32

protein: AbcD
- four letters
- first and last letter capitalized
- same four letters as corresponding gene name

genes: abcD
- all italicized
- last letter capitalized only