MCIM 224 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Chemotaxis, Block Drug, Disinfectant
10 May 2016
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
How we name bacteria and why its important. Bacterial relationships to each other & rest of life. How to isolate pure cultures of bacteria. Anatomy of a typical bacterial (procaryotic) cell. Cell size - average 2 micron diameter (vs. 8 micron red blood cell) Small size of bacteria = high surface-to-volume ratio. Nutrients / wastes can efficiently move into / out of the cell, thus enabling very rapid cell growth. A large number of bacterial cells can occupy a small physical space. Enough bacteria to start an infection (10 100 cells) can easily be introduced via a very small wound (eg. a needle poke) Bacillus (rod), coccus (round), or spirochete (spiral) arranged as singles, pairs, clusters, or chains. Important visual characteristics used for the identification of medically relevant bacteria. Gel-like internal matrix of the cell (mostly water) Ribosomes (protein synthesis) (note: proc. vs. euc. ribosomes are functionally the same but structurally different) Structurally different in gram neg. vs gram pos.
