Missing Microbes

Question 1

What are considered some modern plagues?

Answer 1

Obesity, childhood diabetes, asthma, hay fever, food allergies, esophageal reflux and cancer, celiac diasease, Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, autism, eczema

Question 2

What are the conditions of today’s world like compared to the lethal plagues of the past?

Answer 2

The lethal plagues of the past strict fast and hard but today they are chronic conditions that diminish and degrade their victims’ quality of life for decades

Question 3

How has type 1 diabetes changed?

Answer 3

Has been doubling in incidence about every twenty years across the industrialized world

Also striking younger children

Question 4

What do the rise in chronic conditions suggest?

Answer 4

Children are experiencing levels of immune dysfunction never seen before

Question 5

What is the most popular explanation for the ride in childhood illness?

Answer 5

Hygiene hypothesis ~ modern plagues are happening because we have made our world too clean and the result is that our children’s immune systems have become quiescent and are prone to false alarms and friendly fire

Question 6

The microorganisms that make a living in and on our bodies, massive assemblages of competing and cooperating microbes

Answer 6

Microbiome

Question 7

Where do microbes thrive in/on our bodies?

Answer 7

Mouth, gut, nasal passage, ear canal, on the skin, vagina

Question 8

Why are parts of our microbiome disappearing?

Answer 8

1) . Overuse of antibiotics in humans and animals
2) . Cesarean sections
3) . Widespread use of sanitizer sand antiseptics

Question 9

How does the loss of our microbiome affect us?

Answer 9

• changes our development
• affects our metabolism
• immunity
• cognition

Question 10

A serious inflammation of the nervous system

Answer 10

Meningitis

Question 11

A genus of spiral shaped bacteria

Their helical shape helps them penetrate the gelatin like mucus that lines the gastrointestinal tract

Answer 11

Campylobacter

Question 12

Affected pregnant sheep and cattle causing them to abort

Rarely infects humans

Answer 12

Campylobacter fetus

Question 13

What is helicobacter pylori?

Answer 13

Found in the stomach

Can cause gastritis and ulcers

Also part of our normal gut flora and plays a critical role in our health

Question 14

What’s a key step in restoring our missing microbes?

Answer 14

Reduce the overuse of antibiotics in children

Question 15

Domain of bacteria

Single cell organisms that lack a nucleus

Answer 15

Prokaryotes

Question 16

Single cells with a nucleus and other organelles that provide building blocks for more complex, multicellular forms of life

Answer 16

Eukaryotes

Question 17

What are the classes of microbes

Answer 17

Bacteria (prokaryotes)
Archaea
Eukaryotes

Question 18

Not alive
Propagate by invading and co-opting living cells
Most target bacterial cells

Answer 18

Virus

Question 19

What is one possible way to treat bacterial diseases in humans

Answer 19

Involves harnessing phages~ viruses that kill bacteria

Question 20

What is an important feature of microbial life?

Answer 20

They can lurk for long periods of time in small numbers and then spontaneously blood

Question 21

What do microbes do to make the planet habitable?

Answer 21

Decompose the dead

Convert inert nitrogen in the atmosphere into a form of free nitrogen

Question 22

Bacteria living stably together

Answer 22

Consortium

Question 23

Microbes that can form gelatin like layers surrounding themselves

Form thick gels called…

Explains bacterial persistence in harsh circumstances

Answer 23

Biofilms

Question 24

When does the development of your microbiome begin?

Answer 24

Immediately at the moment of birth

Develops in the first few years of life

Question 25

Do we all have the same microbiome?

Answer 25

No every creature has coevolved with its own collection of microbes that carry out many metabolic and protective functions

Question 26

Are microbiomes diverse?

Answer 26

Diversity is critical High diversity affords protection to all species within the ecosystem because their interactions create robust webs for capturing and circulating resources

Question 27

What does the loss of diversity do to a microbiome?

Answer 27

Loss of diversity leads to disease or to collapse of the system when keystone species~ones that exert a disproportionately large effect on the environment relative to their abundance~are lost

Question 28

How many human cells and bacterial cells do we have?

Answer 28

30 trillion human 100 trillion bacterial and fungal 70-90% of all our cells are nonhuman

Question 29

What are traits that allow microbes to survive in humans?

Answer 29

- ability to survive acidity - exploit certain foods - to prefer dry over wet conditions or vice versa

Question 30

Where do most microbes make their living in humans?

Answer 30

Intestinal tract, beginning from your mouth

Question 31

Are there more differences in our human genes or microbial genes?

Answer 31

Microbial genes

Question 32

What is the richest zone in the mouth for microbes?

Answer 32

Gingival crevice, the interface between the tooth and gum

Question 33

Where does smell/body odor mostly come from?

Answer 33

Mostly microbial in origin Causes odors in mouth armpits and groin

Question 34

How does H. Pylori help the body?

Answer 34

Makes acid and hormones | Helps with the state of immunity

Question 35

Where do the majority of your microbes live?

Answer 35

In the colon Break down fibers and digest starch Some of their products feed us (short chain fatty acids)

Question 36

What do microbes help you do with their products?

Answer 36

- maintain stable blood pressure via specialized receptors located in blood vessels - metabolize drugs - make vitamin K, which is needed for blood to clot

Question 37

How does lactobacilli shield the vagina?

Answer 37

By producing lactic acid, which lowers the pH, making it slightly acidic and less hospitable to pathogens

Question 38

How do periods affect microbes in the vagina?

Answer 38

- during most of the month- L. inners | - during period-L. Gasseri

Question 39

What is the most important service your microbes provide?

Answer 39

Immunity

Question 40

Is based on the microbes that are already in your body, your long term residents, inhibiting outsiders through various mechanisms

Answer 40

Microbial immunity

Question 41

What is an essential property of your resident organisms?

Answer 41

They resist invaders

Question 42

How does your diet change your microbes?

Answer 42

It doesn't much~ a persons gut microbiome is relatively stable

Question 43

Genes that are routine and necessary for life

Answer 43

Housekeeping genes

Question 44

Rare microbial species Can exploit an unusual food chemical that others can't Provide genetic protection against threats, such as a new plague

Answer 44

Contingency microbes

Question 45

Sheds a light on the phenomenon of cooperation Coevolved systems appear to select for individuals who largely play by the rules

Answer 45

Game theory