Microbiology Review Sheet

Unit 2 Learning goals

Please use the following list as a guideline. It is recommended that you review your notes, lecture slides, labs, the readings from your textbook, as well as any supplemental readings listed in the syllabus.

Students should be able to:

Week 5:
Historical Development of Microbiology

  • Outline the major events in the history of microbiology, including the major conributors to the early development of microscopy, medical advances, aseptic techniques, and the germ theory of disease.
  • Understand cell theory and how it relates to historical developments (Hooke, Leeuwenhoek, etc)
  • Distinguish between spontaneous generation and biogenesis and its relation to historical experimentation to explain early theories of microbiology
  • Explain and give examples of Pasteur’s contributions to the field of microbiology
  • Describe the Germ Theory of Disease, its contributors (Semmelweis, Pasteur, Lister, etc) and experimentation or practices that shaped its tenets.
  • Recount and critically analyze Koch’s postulates and ways to test or modify the basic application of the postulates
  • Define the experimental relevance of each of steps of Koch’s postulates (and as they related to the Yogurt Lab)

Fermentation and Cellular Metabolism

  • Define fermentation and explain its relevance to microbes.
  • Name food products or natural processes that involve fermentation
  • Understand the possible byproducts of anaerobic metabolism of carbohydrate (lactic acid vs. alcohol production)

Week 6:

Fermentation and Cellular Metabolism

  • Characterize the three main steps involved in carbohydrate metabolism in cells (glycolysis, Krebs cycle, and electron transport chain)
  • Understand the relationships between the 3 major processes of carbohydrate metabolism and fermentation
  • Explain the difference between aerobic and anaerobic metabolism and relate it to the breakdown of carbohydrate (glucose) and ATP energy production and the effectiveness of the above 3 metabolic processes in the presence and absence of oxygen
  • Be familiar with the beginning and end products for each process and what was oxidized or reduced.

Week 7 : Winter Break!

Week 8: Microbial Growth Control

  • Understand the relationships (similarities and differences) between sterilization, pasteurization, autoclaving, detergents,filtration and radiation (irradiation), as means of microbiological control
  • Compare and contrast disinfection, sanitation, germicide, bacteriostasis and antibiotics
  • Identify the main physical and chemical requirements for bacterial growth.
  • Describe several ways the antimicrobial agents (physical and chemical) work

STOP HERE!.....MINI UNIT ON GENETICS______

Week 9 and 10:
Bacterial Genetics

  • Understand the basic structure and organization of DNA/chromosomes of bacterial cells
  • Explain the steps that lead to the flow of genetic information from DNA to protein (genesRNAprotein)
  • Characterize the molecular level detail in which DNA is replicated in bacteria cells (recognize any appreciable differences between this process in prokaryotes and eukaryotes)
  • Define and understand the interconnection of DNA replication, transcription and translation (particularly in prokaryotic cells)
  • Differentiate between vertical and horizontal gene transfer
  • Define, compare and contrast the 3 main routes of horizontal gene transfer or genetic recombination of bacterial cells (transformation, conjugation and transduction) and relate them to antibiotic resistance
  • Contextualize Griffith’s transformation experiment and the implications for understand how cells acquire novel traits
  • Understand the classical (F+/F-/Hfr) and expanded processes of conjugation including the ways in which cell make contact and the ways in which conjugation results in novel acquisition of genetic material that different from transformation
  • Briefly understand how the processes of genetic recombination and transposition might enable bacterial cells to acquire antibiotic resistance
  • Relate how genetic recombination can be used to alter microbial cells to make novel proteins or compounds for industrial scale applications

LABS: 1 - Yogurt Lab

2–Disk Diffusion Lab