Dictyostelium discoideum--also known as slime mold--is an amoeba, whose natural habitat is soil and decaying leaves found in the deciduous forest (key paper). This organism’s life cycle consists of a unicellular phase and a multicellular phase. During the unicellular phase, the amoeba feeds on bacteria and yeast, and reproduces through binary fission. Upon starvation conditions, D. discoideum amoeba collect into aggregates. Cell differentiation would occur at this point to eventually create a multicellular fruiting body. There are several factors that make D. discoideum an ideal model organism to study host-pathogen interactions. By using the amoeba, host-pathogen interactions can be observed with only the two organisms present. This is most likely not possible when higher organisms, such as C. elegans or Drosophila, are used as hosts. In …show more content…
discoideum (SOURCE). P. aeruginosa is a Gram-negative pathogen that causes life-threatening infections in people with compromised immune systems, such as those undergoing chemotherapy or those with cycstic fibrosis. The bacteria is commonly seen in nosocomial infections (hospital-acquired infections), such as pneumonia, UTIs, and sepsis. First, it was tested whether or not P. aeruginosa could infect D. discoideum. P. aeruginosa strain PA14 was grown in LB, collected through centrifugation, and resuspended in SorC buffer (16.7 mM Na2H/KH2PO4/50 microM CaCl2, pH 6.0). D. discoideum was added to the bacterial suspension to create final concentration of 500 cells/ml. 0.2 ml of the mixture was pipetted on to SM/5 plates containing 1/5 of a SM stock solution (1% glucose/1% Bacto peptone/0.1% Bacto yeast extract/4.2 mM MgSO4). As a control, D. discoideum was also plated with Klebsilla aerogenes, which was known to be non-pathogenic towards D. discoideum. This first assay showed that the strain PA14 could infect D.
In this lab, we examined protist survival in different communities. An biological community is a community where two or more species coexist in
Wischusen, William, Jolissaint, Ann, Reiland, Jane, and Pomarico, Steven. 2012. Biology 1208/1209: Biological Laboratories for Science Majors. Hayden McNeil, Plymouth,
difficile lies within the 19.6 kb pathogenicity locus (PaLoc) and codes for two major virulence factors and three accessory proteins [9]. Genes tcdA and tcdB encode Toxin A and Toxin B, respectively, the two major virulence factors which are part of the clostridial glucosylating toxin family [10]. Both catalyze the inactivation of Rho-GTPases, which are essential for the regulation of eukaryotic cell cytoskeleton [9]. The inactivation of Rho-GTPases causes cell death via cytoskeletal disorganization [9]. The accessory gene functions are as follows; tcdE as a putative holin protein; tcdD as a positive regulator and tcdC as a negative regulator, both of which are controlling Toxin A and B gene expression
Toxic mold is one thing that you should never take lightly. Even though there are thousands of mold breeds, and though most of them are harmless, the few that are toxic are seriously dangerous. Not only can toxic mold hurt you, your family and cause heavy expenses in medical bills, but the cost to remove mold from your house is extensive as well. Since mold in a building is not your fault, you should not have to pay the removal cost, or possibly even that of the medical expenses. So whom you have to sue to get it covered? To find out, you need to ask yourself some questions:
If you’re a property manager, own a rental home, or have tenants then you really do need to take time out to understand Colorado’s mold remediation laws and potential causes for litigation.
Prokaryotes are ubiquitous, successfully adapting to diverse environments as well as developing symbiotic relationships with host organisms (Lengeler, Drews, & Schlegel, 1999). Prokaryotes may have both autotrophic and heterotrophic characteristics. A cyanobacteria is photosynthetic, commonly called blue-green algae, and may produce toxins (Crayton, 1993). Bacteria are most commonly associated in the general
Black mold is Stachybotrys Chartarum, and it can be removed from any home. It produces materials called mycotoxins. If the area has a lot of moisture, the matter may be slimy and greenish in color. A powdery dust exists in less-humid areas, and it may be easily airborne if disturbed. The time to tackle a cleanup is immediately.
After culturing the slime mold it had 90% growth, it then decreased by 10% on day two. By the third day however, black spots started to appear, and the slime mold was deemed dead.
The goal is this project was to use our skills previously learned in class and apply them to identifying an unknown organism. These types of skills are important in many clinical setting. If a patient came in with unrecognizable symptoms using the skills we used in class one could be able to identify the organism and give the patient targeted treatment. We performed twelve experiments to help us to do so. After conduction my experiments I was able to identify my unknown as the organism Pseudomonas aeruginosa. P. aeruginosa is a “ubiquitous environmental bacterium that is one of the top three causes of opportunistic human infections.” (***) An important part of this organism
A single celled organism, such as an Amoeba, has a short life because of the heavy work load and exposure to elements on all four of its sides. An Amoeba operates on one cell, so it is a lot of work and cannot get very big with just one cell. Any injury to the
Previous research about slime molds have indicated that they possess a primal form of memory, based on information stored within the thick ooze track the molds leave behind as they move. However, research conducted by David Vogel and Audrey Dussutour of Toulouse suggest more: they found that Physarum polycephalm, a bright yellow species of slime mold, are able to learn, and then transfer that knowledge during and after fusion of mold cells. Vogel and Dussutour cultured the P. polycephalm in dishes filled with an agarose gel/ oatmeal mixture, and then placed the molds next to an area of food accessible only by means of an agar bridge. Half of the time, the bridges were coated with quinine water or caffeine, which taste bitter to the slimes. The molds were reluctant to cross the coated bridges at first (they took twice as long to reach the food compared to the molds that crossed bridges that were free of the repellants), but after a few days, the slime molds “learned” that the repellants were harmless. The slime
What is a Dictyostelium discoideum? D. discoideum commonly referred to, as slime mold is a species of amoebas that are soil living; they belong to the phylum Mycetozoa. “D. discoideum is a eukaryote that transitions from a collection of unicellular amoebae into a multicellular slug and then into a fruiting body within its one lifetime. “ The unicellular phase consists of solitary amoeba feeding on bacteria and reproducing by binary fission. When faced with starvation, the amoeba collects into aggregates and develops into multicellular fruiting bodies. This particular multicellular organism is only multicellular under the certain environmental conditions that demand of it.
Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a gram-negative, catalase, citrate, and oxidase positive, recognized by producing a blue green fluorescent pigment that commonly isolated from soil and water, water containing these bacteria can also contaminate food, and pharmaceutical products (Walker et al., 2004). It was reported that water with suboptimal levels of chlorine can collaborate the survival of Pseudomonas aeruginosa (Shrivastava and Upreti, 2004). Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a pathogen capable of infecting both animals and humans , it is responsible for about 28% of bacteremia episodes, also a main cause of morbidity and mortality in patients with cystic fibrosis (Al-Daraghi and Wathiq Abbas , 2013) .
I am currently reasearching what is mold and the effects of mold. Moulds are microscopic fungi that survive by feeding off organic matter. Scientific estimates believe the amount of different types of fungi range from tens of thousands to perhaps 300,000 or more. Most are threadlike organisms and the production of spores is a characteristic of all types of fungi, not just certain types. These spores can be transported by air, water, or insects. The spores are constantly floating through the air however at that point are invisible to the naked eye, once they find a suitable environment with food they grow and become noticeable. The green colour shown by the fungi is the spores. Certain types of fungi grow mycotoxins which are hazardous to human
The capability to employ these tools apart from traditional genetic models is critical because, in some circumstances, the best model for a question may not be a traditional genetic model. Despite the fact that there are numerous benefits of studying new model organisms, there are a few challenges. In order to gain insight into the cell biology of new model organisms, they will need to be grown in or near a laboratory, which can be quite challenging because most organisms do not complete their life cycles easily in the laboratory. To make this challenge easier it may be helpful to start with a wide assortment of model organisms that might answer a specific question, and then narrowing it from numerous species to a few. Consulting with others in the research community can benefit by sharing data, organisms, and methods. One exciting benefit of working with new organisms, or organisms that have been less studied, is the constant unexpected surprises and new discoveries that come with closely examining new