Focus Points on Chapter 1-5
This will help you recognize the points I want to emphasize from chapters 1-5
Make sure you have read all the chapters in their entirety. Then go back and answer these questions for yourself.
Chapter 1 - Microbiology is relevant to many fields: from food companies seeking to preserve their products or use of microbes in making their products.
Beer, Yogurt, Sauerkraut, Cheese are all made using microbes.
Be able to distinguish between fungi, bacteria, algae, and protozoa in terms of size and characteristics
Be able to describe the contributions made to microbiology by:
Anton van Leeuwenhoek
Louis Pasteur
Joseph Lister
Ignaz Semmelweiz
Robert Koch
Paul Erhlich
Alexander Fleming
J Craig Venter
What are Koch’s postulates and how are related to germ theory of disease.
Chapter 2 - Chemistry is relevant to microbiology because it explains physical properties of microorganisms.
Be able to rank ionic, covalent, and hydrogen bonds in terms of strength.
Describe how a ionic bond forms and how a covalent bond forms.
Bonds only form using outermost “valence” electrons
What does it mean to be a polar molecule?
Why is the phrase “like dissolves like” an important concept in determining solubility.
How can soap bridge the solubility between a polar solvent like water and a nonpolar one like oil?
How can an isotope be used to label a molecule?
How many atoms are in a mole? How much does a mole of carbon atoms weigh?
What numbers in the pH scale are considered acidic?
What does it mean to be an acid?
Carbon is a versatile atom because it can form 4 bonds with other atoms.
What functional groups turn a carbon molecule into an alcohol?
What does a carboxylic acid group look like?
Can you recognize a sugar and distinguish it from a nucleic acid?
Why are long chain hydrocarbons usually nonpolar?
Which macromolecule is typically considered nonpolar?
What are the levels of protein structure.
Chapter 3 Microscopy allowed us to see microorganisms.
How are the properties of light exploited to visualize minute organisms?
What is the unit used to describe the wavelength of visible light?
The shorter the wavelength, the more energetic the light, and less likely to bend.
Define the terms: Refraction, Diffraction, Absorption, Reflection, Transmission and Flourescence.
How can the contrast between a sample field and a specimen be increased?
Why can a electron microscope give better resolution?
Why wouldn’t red light be a good choice for a microscope?
Why can phase contrast or DIC microscopes work without stains?
What is the advantage of confocal microscopy?
What is a Gram stain?
Chapter 4: What are the different possible shapes of bacteria and what are they called.
What do arrangement prefixes “strepto” and “staphylo” stand for?
What is the nature of the bacterial chromosome?
What are the components in a bacterial cell wall. How doe Gram+ cell walls differ from Gram – cell walls?
Why is LPS considered an endotoxin?
What is an endospore? What are endospores resistant to?
Why do conjugation pili in certain microbes alarm health care professionals?
What is the endosymbiotic hypothesis? What does it have to do with microbiology?
How does facilitated diffusion differ from active transport?
How does phagocytosis allow eukaryotic macrophages to get rid of bacteria.
Chapter 5:
Define anabolism and catabolism. Which process generally requires energy?
In a redox reaction, which process involves losing electrons?
What is an autotroph?
Where can bacteria get their energy from?
What is the difference between allosteric and competitive inhibition of enzymes?
Is NADH the oxidized form or the reduced form of NAD?
How can you increase the rate of a chemical reaction.
What is the point of fermentation if it doesn’t produce ATP?
What is the oxygen used for in aerobic cellular respiration?
If anaerobic bacteria cannot tolerate oxygen (obligate anaerobes). How do they carry out respiration?
Potential essay questions:
A)Some bacteria found deep in the ocean are phosphorescent. What value does there seem to be for these microbes, since there is no light down that deep?
B)How can electrons absorb energy and then give it off in chemical reactions?
C)If both starch and cellulose contain the monosaccharide glucose, why can't most animals, including humans, digest cellulose?
D)Most recently, this year, Celera genomics announced that they had created an artificial microbe by synthesizing genes that represent the lowest common denominator of genes used in other organisms (think stripped down). Using the sequence from the smallest genome organism, Mycoplasma genitalium, , and drawing heavily upon those sequences, a fully synthetic M. laboratorium was created. What basic set of genes do you think are necessary to make a microbe?