Diversity of life - Microbiology 1

• What is the Biosphere (3 points)

  1. Global sum of all living ecosystems

  2. partially closed system

  3. self-regulating
• Darwinian Evolution includes (6 aspects)

  Variation, inheritance, struggle for existence, selection, time, adaptation
• What is life (fundamentally)

  nucleic acids, proteins, polysaccharides, lipids, fatty acids
• What is Darwinian life?

  a material system that undergoes reproduction, mutation, and natural selection
• What are the seven pillars of life? Koshland, 2002 (PICERAS)


  program, improvisation, compartmentalisation, energy, regeneration, adaptability, seclusions
• Seven Pillars of life: Program

  organised plan of ingredients and kinetics between ingredients
• seven pillars of life: improvisation

  alteration of the program in response to environment
• seven pillars of life: compartmentalisation

  confined to limited volume + isolated from environment
• seven pillars of life: energy

  open metabolising system
• seven pillars of life: regeneration

  compensation for thermodynamic losses
• seven pillars of life: adaptability

  behavioural response part of the program
• seven pillars of life: seclusions

  chemical control and selectivity
• Classifying life: names

  King Philip Came Over For Good Spaghetti: Domain, Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species
• Taxonomy is ?

  science of classification
• cladistics approach?

  classification which categorises organisms into clades
• A taxon is...

  group of related organisms
• A clade is...

  group of taxa descended from common ancestor
• A grade is...

  group of taxa that share common morphological or physiological traits
• What are microorganisms? (3 points)

  small (thousandths of a millimetre), free-living unicells/cluster cells,
• Examples of microorganisms? (5)

  fungi, algae, protozoa, bacteria, archaea
• what are cells ?

  basic unit of living organism
• common features of cells? (4)

  cell envelope, nucleic acids, ribosomes, cytoplasm
• cell membrane consists of ?

  lipid bilayer, hydrophobic fatty acid ester-linked to hydrophilic head - phosphorylated glycerol
• Cell membrane in Archaea consists of?

  same as normal AND fatty acids branched and cylic isoprenoids
• cell membrane in archaea: Cyclic tetraether lipids can form...


  a monolayer functionally identical to a lipid bilayer
• cell membrane importance? (4 points)

  1. barrier between cell and environment

  2. structural component

  3. site of crucial biochemical reactions

  4. energy generation
• Fluid Mosaic model ?

  lipid bilayer forms a lipid 'bag' around cell, contains proteins that float in lipid bilayer, structural, transport + catalytic proteins
• cell wall constructed from...

  polysaccharides: chitin, cellulose, mannans, xylans
• bacterial cell walls?

  complex, contain peptidoglycan
• Gram stain procedure?

  cells are dyed, binds to cell walls, cells treated with acid or alcohol, crystal labelled gram pos or gram neg
• gram positive bacteria has...

  thick peptidoglycan wall
• Nucleic acids monomers: Nucleotides

  phosphate, 5 C sugar, organic bases,
• Nucleic acid monomers: DNA + RNA

  DNA = 2 deoxyribose. RNA = ribose
• Nucleic acid bases: Pyrimidines + Purines

  1. Pyrimidines = cytosine, Thymine, Uracil(RNA)

  2. Purines = adenine, guanine
• Nucleic acids: RNA (3 points)

  1. single stranded

  2. intra-molecular hydrogen bonding between CBP

  3. folds into 3D structure
• Nucleic acid: DNA (3 points)

  1. double stranded, hydrogen bonding between CBP

  3. double helix structure
• Ribosomes contain ____ subunits, ____ and ____

  2, large, small
• Ribosomes are miniature...

  machines directing process of protein synthesis by translation
• Cytoplasm (3 points)

  1. fluid within cell

  2. biochemical reaction occur within

  3. contains biochemicals
• Biochemicals in cytoplasm ? (3)

  ATP, ADP, NADP