MicroBiology Flashcards
(183 cards)
How are trees of life generated?
Comparing nucleic acid sequences, specifically rRNA as present in all life
Also has a range of rates of secondary structure and double stranded and single stranded region, useful for making primers
What’s a monophyletic group or clade?
It’s a group of organisms that consists of all the descendants of a common ancestor
What’s a taxon?
Any group of species that we can designate a name
Multiple is taxons
What’s a node?
Split in branch from one lineage into another
Root node?
Common ancestor of all taxa in the tree
Point of earliest split in the tree
Root?
Branch leading up to the root node (i.e. the common ancestor of all taxa in tree)
What are the 3 domains?
Bacteria
Archaea
Eukaryota
What is mutational saturation?
Where a site changes so fast difficult to tell what is a reversion (in Analysis)
Challenges on finding out more about Archaea?
Difficult to culture in lab
What is metagenomics?
Sequence everything approach (mixtures of species/genes), then reconstruct genomes, or segments of genomes.
What’s a virus?
Infetive agent that typically consists of a nucleic acid molecule in a protein coat
3 theories on how viruses evolved?
Viruses are escaped portions of cellular organisms
Viruses are extremely derived and reduced cellular organisms
Viruses are relics from a pre-cellular world: Self-replicating units in the ancient virosphere may have gained the ability to form membranes and cell walls, leading to evolution of the three domains of life.
Or a mixture of all 3
Different morphologies of bacteria?
Coccus (sphere shaped)
Rod
Spirillum (like kidney bean)
Spirochete (coiled)
Budding and appendages bacteria (have stalk and hypha)
Filamentous bacteria (very long and thin)
Features of bacterial cell size?
Have a large surface area to volume ratio
Leads to faster uptake of nutrients
And more cells per given resource, more cells mean more evolution which drives evolution
Features of bacteria phospholipid bilayer?
= glycerol + 2 fatty acids + phosphate group
Strengthened by molecules called hapanoids, which is essential for mycoplasmas
In Bacteria and eukaryote ester bond in bilayer, whereas as ether bond in archaea
Archaea bilayer is continuous so much stronger (no small gap in middle)
There are proteins in membrane for transport
Feature of bacterial cell wall?
Made up of Peptidoglycan (2 sugars and some amino acids)
Occurs in90% gram + ves, bacteria and 10% in gram -ves bacteria
How is outer membrane not symmetrical to inner in gram negative bacteria?
The outer isn’t just phospholipids
Large polysaccharide component
How to count bacteria?
By culture, dilute to an extent so colonies can be counted then multiply up
Only tells you have many are living, not necessary all of them
So can count by them a light microscope as well, normally with an oil immersion lens
Equation for resolution of a lens?
R = (0.5 x wavelength) / numerical aperture
Difference of gram positive and negative bacteria and Features of the gram stain?
Gram positive bacteria have large petiodglycan cell wall above plasma membrane
Where as gram negative have 2 bilayer around peptidoglycan cell wall
Need to add notes on how to do the gram stain
Gram positive remain purple
Gram negative go pink
Cell surface structures of bacteria?
Capsules
Fimbriae and pili
Flagellar
Features of capsules?
Can be polysaccharide or protein or both
Play a role in pathogenesis and biofilm formation
What is biofilms formation?
Predominant bacterial phenotype in nature (their stain)
Form on solid substances with moisture
On soft tissues in living organisms
At liquid air interfaces
What are endospores?
Bacteria become them when they go into dormant stage of lifecycle
Very resistant to lots of things