Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
You may answer all 3 for extra
credit
Answers are to be typed and handed in on 10/19 or must be emailed
to me teachbiochem@aol.com by 8:00 PM on 10/19.
41. Name and describe the 3 basic shapes and 2 arrangements in which
bacteria appear. What are biofilms and why are they important to
medicine (use Scientific American article)?
42. Give the symptoms, cause (use specific name of pathogen),
transmission and treatment of three of the infectious diseases presented
in class. You may use an infectious disease that you presented.
43. Compare the mechanisms that viruses and bacteria use to cause
disease. Explain why normal flora is beneficial to humans (give 3
reasons).
41. There are three basic shapes of bacteria, and several variations in the appearance of
bacterial colonies. Round bacteria (1) are called cocci, and pairs of cocci are called
diplococci while larger colonies are called streptococci when the bacteria are lined up end
to end in chains and staphylococci when they form irregular “glob”like clusters. Rod
shaped bacteria are called bacilli (2), and they are found singularly or as streptobacilli
(the strepto prefix having the same meaning as with cocci). Curved or spiral bacteria (3)
may be called vibrios when they are short curved rods, spirochetes when they are thin
flexible helices and spirilla when they are thick rigid helices. Bacteria are also divided
into Grampositive and Gramnegative varieties, depending on the presence of
peptidoglycan in the cell wall that thickens the structure and often provides better
protection from the environment.
Bacterial colonies sometimes form biofilms when individual bacteria excrete a
protective sticky layer made of carbohydrates to form a matrix, or substratum – each
bacterium is like a cubicle in a grid. Biofilms are often formed in contaminated tap water
(which helps scientists if they are testing the cleanliness of a water source) and can be
harder to destroy with antibiotics since the antibiotic might not be able to penetrate
further than a few layers in the matrix, or cannot effectively destroy the carbohydrate
matrix, or simply cannot even bind to the carbohydrate matrix because of its chemical
structure. The gunk that forms in swimming pools if they are not treated with chlorine
(which is a potent antibacterial agent, I use it to clean everything) is a biofilm, and
drinking or washing water supplies have to be treated to prevent biofilms in these as well.
Biofilms may also form on nonsterile surgical implants, and this is why there’s always a
risk of rejection (immunological response) for any surgical procedure.
42. Clostridium tetani is the Grampositive bacillus that forms tetanus, a disease that
affects the anterior horn ganglia – the motor center that needs to be inhibited
continuously by neurotransmitters glycine or gammaamino butyric acid (GABA).
Otherwise, the ganglia neurons just constantly fire off, causing muscle spasms or stiffness
(constant muscle contraction) because the body is designed to stay in motion unless
otherwise told (there are actually several benefits to this weird unintuitive setup, and
incidentally, narcolepsy is related to this, when the body excessively inhibits the ganglia
at inopportune times). The tetanus bacteria form endospores to survive in the outside
world, in animal feces, and the endospores only reactivate in an environment without
oxygen – so tetanus may be transmitted through deep puncture wounds (far away from the
outside oxygenrich environment) from fecescontaminated nails or splinters or whatnot.
Tetanus is treated with tetanus immunoglobulin (immune response) to destroy the
neurotoxin antigen that interferes with the motor inhibition response, as well as with
antibiotics like penicillin and metronidazole to kill the bacteria.
Rabies is caused by the Lyssavirus rabies virus which is transmitted by the bite of
a rabid animal (bat, dogs, raccoons, etc.) since it is found in the saliva. The rabies virus
travels along nerve pathways to the brain, where it causes swelling (encephalitis) which is
bad because nerves get activated and inactivated for the wrong reasons (causing insomnia,
seizures, anxiety, confusion, and can be damaged; the neurons that the rabies virus travels
through can also be affected in similar ways (myelitis, which causes numbness or pain
sensations, and involuntary muscle actions); hydrophobia is also a concern, characterized
by excessive salivation as well as inability to speak or swallow due to the muscle spasms
and stiffness caused by the disease. Rabies needs to be treated within 2 weeks of
infection, before the damage gets too severe, with a vaccine and immunoglobulin (the
treatment is known as postexposure prophylaxis).
Typhoid fever, with the bacillus Salmonella typhi to blame, is characterized by
intense fever (104F), rash, and constipation in the early stages. The disease progresses to
severe diarrhea and bloody stool in three weeks, accompanied by delirium, confusion, and
agitation; toxemia (blood poisoning), myocarditis (heart muscle inflammation), and
intestinal hemorrhaging can develop which almost certainly lead to death. The typhoid
bacterium is transmitted fecalorally, and is treated with antibiotics like ampicillin; a
vaccine is available as well.
43. Bacteria and viruses have distinct methods of infection. Viruses are quasiliving since
they cannot perform any metabolic or reproductive processes, unlike most organisms, and
so must infect other organisms to survive – they attach to a cell and inject their genetic
material into the cell, disrupting its normal processes and causing them to turn into
virtual virus factories. Bacteria don’t need other cells to perform cellular processes, so the
reasons why they infect other organisms are for parasitic purposes, or maybe mutual
benefit. Bacteria feed on the host or organisms that come along the host’s way and use the
host to transmit their offspring. The immunologic response that bacteria often have is due
to antigens (carbohydrate structures on cell walls) that may have toxic side effects on the
host (or may help the bacteria acquire nutrients or favorable habitat conditions).
Normal flora (bacteria that live in/on organisms without being attacked by the
immune system) are beneficial for several reasons. They provide services like
metabolizing or providing vitamins, attacking or competing against other bacteria that
may be infectious, and stimulate the production of antibodies that, while not affecting the
normal flora, do work against infectious bacteria of similar antigen structures. It is
important to note that often normal flora is only beneficial or harmless in certain habitats
– for example, most E. coli are harmless in the intestines but can cause problems if they
infect the urinary tract or abdomen.