Microscopic single-celled organisms, such as bacteria, consist of a seemingly simple internal structure that lacks membrane-bound organelles, yet bacteria thrive in diverse nutritional environments. The significant ability of bacteria to adapt to a wide variety of nutritional environments reflects their use of overlapping regulatory systems that link gene expression to intracellular accumulation of a small number of key metabolites. Bacteria survive using a diverse array of carbon sources, especially if its main carbon source is absent in their natural environment. Bacteria have carbon components that we know are required for energy production but how does the transport of carbon sources, which is in turn utilized in the central metabolic pathway connected to gene regulation? The central metabolic pathways are those pathways that provide the precursor metabolites to all the other pathways for the synthesis of macromolecules such as DNA, RNA, and proteins. Symbiotic interactions between bacteria and its hosts have been studied for about half a century now to help develop a more detailed view of the reactions that generate the central metabolites in bacterial cells. In some circumstances, bacteria produce harsh biochemicals as a response to nutritional stress. The genes that are required for the utilization of nutritional sources are typically regulated by the availability of the substrate. Similarly, the genes required for the biosynthesis of particular cellular
There are many types of bacteria that can be found in your bathroom. They might also be found on your toothbrush! I have been researching about what bacteria are lurking in my bathroom. I placed 6 petri dishes filled with agar in my bathroom. I left them there for 24 hours to collect bacteria samples.
“Bacterial illness is a result of complex interactions between bacteria and the host. During evolution, humans developed many ways to protect themselves against bacterial pathogens. On the other hand, bacteria have developed strategies to evade, subvert or circumvent these defenses” (Sousa, 2003) “One of the most important characteristics of bacterial pathogenicity is the various strategies developed by prokaryotic organisms to use host molecules for their own benefit” (Sousa, 2003). “To accomplish this, bacteria have evolved elaborate control mechanisms to turn genes on and off, varying the transcriptional activator or
Casualties in the Northern California bacteria outbreak are five ill and twenty-nine dead. More are becoming ill by the second. This bacteria, termed Cerequaestionium, affects the brain’s frontal lobe. Doctors reported that within hours, memory and judgment loss set in. People also lose the ability to think and make rational decisions. Three murders have occurred in relation to the disease. Many more suicides and cases of brain failure are being reported. Three are on suicide watch with two more diagnosed this afternoon.
On June 25th, 2015 I chose the test tube labeled #19. This test tube contained an unknown bacterium, and the purpose was to determine the unknown bacterium by the end of the semester. Throughout the course, I ran a series of differential tests that would lead me to discovering the characteristics of my unknown. These tests that I will discuss in this paper are vital to understanding the biochemical mechanisms that different bacteria can perform, therefore helping me identify my bacterium based on molecular differences. During the course of this paper, I will refer to my unknown as unk#19. Also, I would note that aseptic technique was performed throughout the entire experiment and subcultures were regularly made.
Bacterial symbionts are predominant among organisms that shape the biological world (Hurst 1993, Wernegreen 2004). Some of the bacterial symbionts that have an inordinate influence on the health and evolution of their hosts are those bacteria that live within their symbiotic hosts, so-called endosymbionts. Bacterial endosymbionts are the focus of current research programs by the National Institutes of Health (Human Microbiome Project, http://www.hmpdacc.org/) and the National Science Foundation (The Symbiosis, Defense, and Self-recognition Program).
A reading assignment encompassing all the constituents microbial metabolism will be required of students to study in depth before class, while the worksheet in class will be used to review the knowledge they acquired and probe any “weak” points.
Symbiotic relationships are those that evolve between two organisms that interact in a specific manner with each other. These can range from being facultative, where the relationship is not required by either organism, to interactions that are obligate and are required by both organisms to facilitate survival. There are many mechanisms and processes that bacteria and their hosts can use to initiate and maintain symbiotic interactions and a few examples will be described in this report.
This bacterium produces energy via anaerobic respiration using compounds other than oxygen, such as Nitrate, as its final electron acceptor(Vasanthakumari, 2007).
Although gang violence and the possession of firearms seem more detrimental to our society, the production of our food and how it is being genetically modified effects our well-being. Individuals know the health risk of food and the modification of it; however, the issue that revolves around this situation is that, people do not want to hear about what lies beneath the surface because they do not want to give up their addiction. Power and profit are the reasons why corporations treat living-beings as objects. American medicine revolves around treating people with illnesses, not preventing illnesses. The economic development and production of modern meat are responsible for outbreaks and the contamination of our livestock’s. The consumption of animal flesh is a prime contributor to today’s epidemic of heart disease, obesity and cancer.
Three bacteria's that live in the human body are Bifidobacterium, Escherichia Coli, and Streptococcus. One of the bacteria's that live in our body is Bifidobacterium longum. This is a multi-faceted extremely friendly bacterium that resides in the digestive tract and helps to keep the whole digestive system running smoothly. B. longum also inhibits the growth of pathogenic bacteria and it produces lactic acid. This can help people who are lactose intolerant. They are believed to be one of the most dominant friendly bacterial species that live inside us, and are early colonizers of the digestive tract of newborn infants. Some health benefits are: stimulation
Bacteria are ubiquitous and ever changing, making the ability to identify unknown bacteria extremely important. Knowing a bacterium and its characteristics gives insight to how it responds to its environment and how it affects humans, which can affect the medical and pharmaceutical fields. The purpose of this lab was to determine an unknown bacterium through the use of varied approaches, to ultimately obtain more comprehensive results than a singular approach would. Approaches used in this lab include classical approaches, such as biochemical tests, staining and Bergey’s Manual of Determinative Bacteriology, as well as genomic approaches like isolation sequencing, polymerase chain reaction, electrophoresis, and a BLAST sequence database. It
Arthrobacter is a dominant genus of bacteria found in soil from all over the world. Several species are even found in places as inhospitable as the McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica (Zeglin et al. 2009). This presence in habitats all across the world is made possible because of the extreme adaptability of their genomes to a wide range of environmental conditions (Mongodin et al. 2006). Species that are members of this genus are commonly gram positive, obligate aerobes. Arthrobacter species are also chemoorganotrophs and have an oxidative metabolism (Holt et al. 1994).
In the natural environment, organisms form a complexity of relationships, these interactions aid the composition and maintenance of genetic variation within ecosystems. The interaction of a predator with its prey offers one such example. To become a successful predator an organism is likely to be subject to trade-offs. This project aimed to begin identification of phenotypic trade-offs, and the genes that control them, during the predation of multiple bacterial species by the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum. The study looked to increase tractability of previously used bacterial virulence assays by completing multiple experiments on a single 24-well plate. The assay displayed the Gram-negative bacterium, Klebsiella aerogenes to be
The bacterium evolved by loosing its genes converting it from a free-living microbe into a pathogen. It needs the host’s nutrients in order to survive. The bacterium latches itself onto the host epithelial cells by a 160 kDa type 1 pilli. The pilli, located on a specific organelle on the polar region of the
Bacteria regulate their population gene expression by cell-to-cell communication through a process known as quorum sensing, a ‘collective sensing’ of molecules that are emitted in the environment, leading to a collective response (Popat et al., 2015). Quorum sensing is widely used to control various biological processes for their survival, usually those that are unproductive in an individual cell (Lixa et al., 2015). Depending on the biological process the bacteria regulates, quorum sensing undergoes different mechanisms and tight regulatory circuits to communicate with each other and transmit signals.