PATH 3610 Study Guide - Final Guide: Bactericide, Shingles, Necrotizing Fasciitis
10 Aug 2018
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The major groups of organisms that we will consider are the prions, viruses, bacteria, fungi, and parasites. In the broadest sense, a parasite refers to a plant or animal, which lives upon, or within another living organism, at whose expense it obtains some advantage. By this definition, many of the groups of organisms (infectious agents) named above are parasites. By popular usage, however, parasite has come to refer more specifically to protozoan, metazoan (helminths and flukes) and arthropod organisms that cause disease. The term parasite will be used both ways in this unit. The above classifications relate to the structural complexity of the organism. The viruses can be further classified as rna or dna viruses, on the basis of the type of nucleic acid in their genomes. Bacteria are further classified by shape - cocci, rods (bacilli), and spirochetes - by their reaction on gram staining (gram-positive or gram- negative), and by their oxygen requirement for growth (aerobic or anaerobic).
