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CHAPTER 1 Microbial World and You

This document provides an overview of microbiology and parasitology. It defines microorganisms and discusses the types of microbes, including bacteria, archaea, fungi, protozoa, algae, and viruses. It also summarizes the history of microbiology, from early observations of cells to discoveries establishing the germ theory of disease and development of treatments like antibiotics and vaccination. The document emphasizes that microbes play both harmful and beneficial roles in human lives and the environment.

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Asther Mantua
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611 views4 pages

CHAPTER 1 Microbial World and You

This document provides an overview of microbiology and parasitology. It defines microorganisms and discusses the types of microbes, including bacteria, archaea, fungi, protozoa, algae, and viruses. It also summarizes the history of microbiology, from early observations of cells to discoveries establishing the germ theory of disease and development of treatments like antibiotics and vaccination. The document emphasizes that microbes play both harmful and beneficial roles in human lives and the environment.

Uploaded by

Asther Mantua
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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1

Microbiology and Parasitology


Instructor : Loren Grace Jaranilla-Anunciado

THE MICROBIAL WORLD AND YOU

 The overall theme of this subject is the relationship between microbes and our lives.
 This relationship involves not only the familiar harmful effects of certain microorganisms, such as
causing disease and spoiling food but also their many beneficial effects.
 In the first part of this subject, some of the many ways microbes affect our lives will be introduced.

WHAT IS MICROBIOLOGY?
 specialized area of biology that deals with living things ordinarily too small to be seen with the unaided
eye

WHAT IS A MICROORGANISM?
 Does not fit into any of the categories in that old question, “Is it animal, vegetable or mineral?”
 Microbes, minute living things that individually are too small to be seen with the unaided eye.

Applications:
 We tend to associate these small organisms only with major diseases such as AIDS, uncomfortable
infections, or such common inconveniences as spoiled food.
 However, the majority of microorganisms make crucial contributions to the welfare of the world’s
inhabitants by helping to maintain the balance of living organisms and chemicals in our environment.

 Microbes are involved in energy and nutrient flow.


o Photosynthesis
o Decomposition
o Humans and many other animals depend on the microbes in their intestines for digestion and the
synthesis of some vitamins that their bodies require, including some B vitamins for metabolism
and vitamin K for blood clotting.
 Commercial applications
o Synthesis of such chemical products as acetone, organic acids, enzymes, alcohols and many
drugs (antibiotics).
o Food industry (vinegar, pickles, alcoholic beverages, soy sauce, buttermilk, cheese, yogurt, bread
o Genetic engineering

 Only a minority of microorganisms are pathogenic (disease-producing)


o Practical knowledge of microbes is necessary for medicine and the related health sciences.
o Hospital workers must be able to protect patients from common microbes that are normally
harmless but pose a threat to the sick and injured.
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NAMING AND CLASSIFYING ORGANISMS

Nomenclature (naming) for organisms


- established by Carolus Linnaeus
- scientific nomenclature assigns each organism two names – the genus is the first name (always
capitalized); the specific epithet (species name) follows (not capitalized)\

 TYPES OF MICROORGANISMS

1. BACTERIA

- Simple, single-celled (unicellular), genetic material is not enclosed in a special nuclear


membrane
- Prokaryotes (pre-nucleus; before nucleus); they have no true nucleus
- Bacillus (rodlike), coccus (spherical or ovoid), spiral (corkscrew or curved)
- Star-shaped; square
- Pairs, chains, clusters; or other groupings
- Enclosed in cell walls that are composed of a substance called peptidoglycan
- Reproduce by dividing into two equal daughter cells (binary fission)
- Nutrition: use organic chemicals from either dead or living organisms
- Some can manufacture their own food; some derived nutrition from inorganic substances
- Can “swim” by using moving appendages called “flagella”

2. ARCHAEA

- consist of prokaryotic cells


- they have cell walls, the walls lack peptidoglycan
- often found in extreme environments
3 main groups:
1. methanogens – produce methane as a waste product from respiration
2. extreme halophiles – live in extremely salty environment (Great Salt Lake, Dead Sea)
3. extreme thermophiles – live in hot sulfurous water such as hot springs at Yellowstone
National Park

3. FUNGI

- eukaryotes (eu-true. True nucleus)


- Cells have a distinct nucleus containing the cell’s genetic material (DNA) surrounded by a
special envelope called the nuclear membrane.
- Unicellular or multicellular
- Mushrooms (look like plants but cannot carry pout photosynthesis), yeasts (unicellular)
- Molds ( most typical fungi) – molds form visible masses called MYCELIA, which are composed
of long filaments (HYPHAE) that branch and interwine.
- The cottony growths sometimes found on bread and fruit are mold mycelia
- Reproduce sexually or asexually
3

4. PROTOZOA
- unicellular, eukaryotic
- move by pseudopods, flagella or cilia
- Amoebas
- Have a variety of shapes and live either as free entities or as parasites (organisms that derive their
nutrients from the living hosts)
- Reproduce sexually or asexually

5. ALGAE
- photosynthetic eukaryotes
- cell walls of many algae, like those of plants, are composed of cellulose
- photosynthesizers
- play an important role in the balance of nature

6. VIRUSES
- Very different from the other microbial groups
- So small, electron microscope
- Acellular (not cellular)
- Structurally very simple
- Reproduce only by using the cellular machinery of other organisms

 MULTICELLULAR ANIMAL PARASITES


- multicellular animal parasites are not strictly microorganisms, but they are of medical importance
- during some stages of their life cycle, they are microscopic in size
- two major groups of parasitic worms are flatworms and the round worms (HELMINTHS)

BRIEF HISTORY OF MICROBIOLOGY

 1665 – Robert Hooke – reported to the world that life’s smallest structural units were “little boxes” or
“cells” (with the help of the microscope); cell theory – all living things are composed of cell
 Antoni van Leeuwenhoek – first to observe live microorganisms through magnifying lenses
 People wondered and were asking questions where did these organisms originate
 SPONTANEOUS GENERATION – hypothesis which states that living things arise from nonliving
things
 Francisco Redi – disproved this theory of spontaneous generation, maggots do not arise from decaying
meat
 John Needham – found that even after he heated nutrient fluids (chicken broth and corn broth) before
pouring them into covered flasks, the cooled solutions were soon teeming with microorganisms
 Lazzaro Spalanzani – Italian, microorganisms from the air probably had entered Needham’s solutions
after they were boiled
 Rudolf Virchow – challenged spontaneous generations with the concept of BIOGENESIS (living cells
can arise only from preexisting living cells)
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 Louis Pasteur – demonstrated that microbes are present in the air and can contaminate sterile solutions,
but air itself does not create microbes; microbes can be present in nonliving matter – on solids, in
liquids, in the air; microbes can be destroyed by heat and that methods can be devised to block the
access of airborne microbes to nutrient environments
o These discoveries form the basis of aseptic technique (technique that prevents contamination by
unwanted microorganisms
 One of the key steps that established the relationship between soured. Microbes and disease
occurred when a group of French merchants asked Pasteur to find out why wine and beer soured.
 Fermentation
 Yeast convert sugars to alcohol in the absence of air
 Souring and spoiling is caused by another microorganisms (bacteria) that change alcohol into vinegar
 Pasteurization – solution to the problem of fermentation (spoilage)
 This establishes the relationship between microbes and diseases.
 Germ Theory of Disease – microorganisms might cause disease.
 Theory – difficult to accept – disease is a punishment for an individual’s crimes or misdeeds; blamed
the disease on demons appearing as foul odors.
 People did not believe that microbes can travel through the air and infect plants and animals; or
remain in clothing and bedding to be transmitted from one person to another.
 Ignaz Semmelweis – demonstrated that physicians who did not disinfect their hands transmit infections
from one patient to another
 Joseph Lister – aseptic surgery; carbolic acid kills bacteria; reduces the incidence of infection, surgeons
quickly adopted it.
 Robert Koch – provides proof that bacteria actually cause disease; Bacillus anthracis; Koch’s postulate
 Edward Jenner – experiment to find a way to protect people from smallpox; vaccination; vaccine
(vacca – cow)
 Immunity – protection from disease provided by vaccination (or by recovery from the disease itself)
 Search for substances that could destroy pathogenic microbes
 Chemotherapy – treatment of disease by using chemical substances
 Synthetic drugs, antibiotics
 Paul Ehrlich - salvarsan (against syphilis);
 Antibiotics affect the pathogenic microbes without harming the host
 Alexander Fleming – discover penicillin by accident

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