Microbes and Society
Case Study: An Infectious Cure
Part 1 Questions
1. The Europeans poured have poured something into the water which sterilized the water and killed the toxins that become disruptive in the digestive system when they are consumed. They Europeans may have poured what are called oral rehydration salts into the well, which quickly works are combatting the cholera, and will prevent further outbreaks from occurring.
2. Ethical issues that are raised by pouring the treatment into the wells without the consent of others is that people should be entitled to choose whether or not they want to chance their lives by consuming a mystery cure. The villagers have no idea what is being poured into the wells, which further down the
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4. No the villagers should not be concerned that this virus will cause damage to their intestines because that is solely what cholera targets, and the purpose of the phages are to combat the cholera bacteria, which would in turn help their intestines.
5. The release of a toxin from the cholera bacteria is what causes people to experience the dreadful symptoms. A negative health concern of killing the cholera at a quick rate is that since the phages will prevent symptoms from increasingly becoming worse, the “dead” cholera in the intestine may sit there for a longer amount of time instead of running straight through the person which may do more damage to the intestine.
6. Humans should not be concerned about the bacteriophages infecting other cells because each bacteriophage is particular to a certain bacteria. If the bacterial cell exhibits traits that are desirable to the certain bacteriophage, then the phage will chose to bind and infect it, otherwise people have nothing to worry about.
7. If the bacteria became lysogenic, people would see improvements much faster, because more phages are being produced to combat the cholera bacteria.
8. Eventually the bacteriophages will die in the intestine since there will be no more bacteria to combat and live off of.
9. A risk to phage therapy is that the virus and bacteria both evolve over time. Using this method more frequently may cause the virus’s to evolve more quickly. If
2. What are examples of bacteria and pathogen of concern in water that can cause illness?
Some phages infect bacteria to destroy them, which is called lysic lifestyle, while other phages infect bacteria and stay dormant inside them for a while, which is referred to as a lysogenic lifestyle. A phage infects the bacteria cell by injecting its genetic material into the bacteria’s cytoplasm. This allows the bacteria synthesis process to start making the phage’s genetic code instead of its own. Once the bacteria have made enough phages to handle, the walls will break and release all of the phage that was created. The phages that were made are now resetting the process and beginning again by infecting the other near bacteria by injecting their genetic material once again. Those phages that stay within the bacteria and not burst the bacteria will continue to reproduce the phages own genetic code. (Griffiths,
5. What signs or evidence do the scientists find that at least some of the men may not have died of cholera?
Causes: Cholera is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The bacteria releases a toxin that causes increased release of water from cells in the intestines, which produces severe
Bacteria B and no Bacteria A leads to no disease. B^ ~A truth table is given as Below.
Between the 1830’s to 1860’s, cholera spread into the United States from India by trade routes. Cholera is an acute diarrhoeal infection caused by drinking or eating material that is infected with Vibrio cholerae. Cholera causes watery diarrhoea, but can show days later or never show
Fecal-related communicable diseases include cholera, typhoid, dysentery (including Shigellosis), diarrhoea, hookworm, schistosomiasis, filariasis and especially epidemics such as cholera (Ziraba, Haregu, & Mberu, 2016). These fecal matters at fresh state as well as state of decomposition are releasing a
As many people may know, bacteria can be either harmful or helpful. The damage on your body can vary by the harmful bacteria. The damage can be as little as a cough all the way to death depending on the bacteria and amount of it. That is why it is really important to for your doctor to prescribe you medicine when you are sick or coming up with something. The reason any doctor emphasizes the importance of finishing the prescribed bottle of antibiotics relates to all 5 steps for evolution by natural selection. The first step one is over reproduction. All animals have the ability to produce more offspring than can possibly survive. This could be critically dangerous for humans because if the bacteria duplicate numerously then the antibiotics might not even be able to kill all bacteria. Another step
Cholera remains a drastically severe disease, killing hundreds of people each outbreak. When ingested, it attaches to the mucosal lining of the intestines and disrupts the normal flow of ions so that there is more sodium, chloride, and water in the intestinal lumen than normal and results in massive diarrhea. Cholera has made a global impact and been endemic in almost all parts of the world. Cholera control strongly emphasizes sanitation, clean drinking water, isolation, and careful food preparation. Two ways our body works against cholera as a self-limiting disease are sloughing cells and the secretory immunoglobulin (sIgA) antibody produced by mucus throughout our body. There are
The study is important to detect if there is a relationship between the amount of phages and the mucus layers in the body because this could help to fight infection from viruses. The information found from the study clearly displays the symbiotic relationship between the phage and the mucus layer of the metazoan host. However, the flow of the article is hard to follow and there are many different experiments briefly explained which could be expanded to help better connect all the experiments. Although the study shows that less bacteria adherence and more phage
Phage display is a modern laboratory technique that is concerned with the study of not only protein-protein interactions but also protein-peptide and protein-DNA interactions through the use of a bacteriophage. Phage display uses a bacteriophage or a virus that infects bacteria to connect phenotype with genotype through the expression of a gene. This novel technique first starts by inserting a gene of interest, which codes for a protein of interest, into the coat protein gene of the virus, thereby causing the virus to express the gene both inside and outside in the form of a phenotype. The phages that display a particular gene can be compared or rather screened against other proteins, peptides, and DNA sequences to establish those above-mentioned interactions. The dynamic range of
Phage therapy involves the use of bacteriophages to treat specific pathogenic bacteria. The bacteriophages infect or kill pathogenic bacteria upon encounter with them. In 1915, Frederick Twort discovered the viruses of bacteria (Abedon, 2011). The bacteriophage era began when Felix d'Hérelle published a seminal publication that demonstrated “un bactériophage obligatoire” (Abedon, 2011) Soon after, microbiologists began to include the phages idea into their ideas. Novel therapies are needed to kill pathogenic bacteria. Phage therapy offers an alternative to the antibiotic treatment of bacteria. Even though bacteria can gradually resist phage, the resistance will not be as pronounced as the resistance to bacteria. Phage therapy is specific
The most widely recognized versatile hereditary components are bacteriophage and bacterial plasmids, which all has a specific technique that takes into consideration exchange between microscopic organisms. Bacteriophages (phages) or bacterial infections appear to have the best effect on staphylococcal differing qualities and advancement. All phages are characterized into one of three particular gatherings: lytic, calm, and interminable. Lytic phages are individuals from the Myoviridae family that have been utilized as a part of phage treatment, since microscopic organisms lyse totally amid arrival of descendants phages. Microbes contaminated with endless phages discharge descendants into the extracellular condition without murdering the host, which permits microorganisms to develop and separate. Mild phages, which are individuals from the Siphoviridae family, shape the most various gathering among all phages. Mild phages can lyse microscopic organisms after contamination, yet they regularly frame a long haul association with the host cell, whereby the phage DNA incorporates into the staphylococcal genome as a prophage . Phages can affect articulation of destructiveness determinants by
However, “although V. cholerae is the source of the cholera infection, the deadly effects of the disease are the result of a potent toxin, called CTX, that the bacteria produce in the small intestine. CTX binds to the intestinal walls, where it interferes with the normal flow of sodium and chloride. This causes the body to secrete enormous amounts of water, leading to diarrhea and a rapid loss of fluids and salts (electrolytes)” (Cholera: Causes)
If the immune system is unable to stop the infection, the bacterium will multiply and then spread to the bloodstream, after which the first signs of disease are observed in the form of fever. The bacterium penetrates further into the bone marrow, liver, and bile ducts, from which bacteria are excreted into the bowel movements. (Easmon 2003)