🎯 An Overview of Microbiology

TARGETS

 

3. Human impact on the environment influences the evolution of microorganisms (e.g., emerging diseases and the selection of antibiotic resistance).  􏰀 Define the term nosocomial infection.
􏰀 Define the term emergent disease.
􏰀 Distinguish between the terms endemic, epidemic, and pandemic.		 􏰀 Describe two human practices (in medicine and agriculture) that have led to the increase of antibiotic resistance (e.g., antibiotics and sub-therapeutic doses of antibiotics in feed, stopping antibiotic therapy too soon, repeated use of the same antibiotic).
􏰀 Describe two human practices that have led to the development of dead zones in bays or oceans.
􏰀 Give an example of a disease that has emerged due to human activities, and state what those human activities were (e.g., AIDS, Ebola virus, bird flu, Lyme disease, etc.).
􏰀 Explain how public health policies (e.g., quarantine and vaccination) can alter epidemic/pandemic progression.
􏰀 Explain how not completing a full treatment of antibiotics can lead to an increase in resistance in a bacterial population.
5. The evolutionary relatedness of organisms is best reflected in phylogenetic trees.  􏰀 List the three Domains of the phylogenetic tree of life. State a unique characteristic of each
Domain.
􏰀 List two features of a useful molecular/evolutionary clock.		 􏰀 Explain what features of 16S rRNA make it useful to compare the evolutionary relationship between organisms.
􏰀 Determine the two most related and two least related organisms from a short list of 16S rRNA sequences.
􏰀 Draw inferences about evolutionary relatedness of organisms based on phylogenetic trees.

 

 

19. Cell genomes can be manipulated to alter cell function.  􏰀 List the common features of vectors used for cloning.
􏰀 List one example in medicine or in agriculture when bacteria acquired new genes that resulted in an altered cell function.		 􏰀 Describe the mechanisms by which orthologs and paralogs arise.
􏰀 Discuss how horizontal gene exchange contributes to the evolution of a genome and a species.
􏰀 Explain how a transposon can be used to create a mutant strain.
􏰀 Design a vector for a given situation.
􏰀 Discuss two societal benefits achieved through the genetic manipulation of microbes.

 

25. Microorganisms provide essential models that give us fundamental knowledge about life processes. 
􏰀 Describe a key study using microbes as model organisms that gave rise to insights about biology
that are applicable across kingdoms and domains (e.g., Griffith’s transformation experiment; Avery, MacLeod, and McCarty’s transformation principle experiment; Hershey-Chase phage experiment; Meselson and Stahl’s semi-conservative replication; Jacob and Monod’s lac operon, etc.).
􏰀 Describe the features of Escherichia coli that have made it a model organism for studying many different life processes.
 􏰀 Explain how the rapid growth of microorganisms facilitates evolutionary studies.
􏰀 Use genomic tools to trace a given human gene back to a bacterial ancestor.
􏰀 Describe synthetic biology efforts in bacteria to define the minimal genome necessary for life.

 

27.  Because the true diversity of microbial life is largely unknown, its effects and potential benefits have not been fully explored.  􏰀 Explain the great plate anomaly/viable but non-cultivatable state.
􏰀 Give an example of a process/product that was recently attributed to being carried out by
microbes.		 􏰀 Discuss the beneficial impact of microbes to at least two different environments.
􏰀 Predict how the removal of microbes can negatively affect a given system.
􏰀 Explain how an uncultured organism’s evolutionary relationship to other organisms on a 16S
rRNA phylogenetic tree may be established.
􏰀 Describe how you would go about prospecting for antibiotics in a new environment.