Microbiology Survey

1. A bit of history - Pasteur's Diseases of Beer, Lister and Smallpox.

       The legacy of the field's history is that many courses stress the medically important microbes to the near exclusion of other microbes. Balance is needed.

   1. Pathogenic microbiology
      1. Strategies that pathogens use to subvert our bodies
      2. Important bacterial diseases
             cholera, typhoid, dysentery, TB, STDs, infant diarrhea, anthrax, plague (Black Death), strep throat, MRSA...
      3. Important viral diseases
             ebola, smallpox, chickenpox, polio, measles, colds, flu, dengue, ...

   2. Non-pathogenic microbiology
      1. Agricultural microbiology - soils, legumes (N-cycle), sulfur-cycle, the rhyzosphere, leaf guard-dog bacteria, silage...
      2. The body's normal flora
         1. external - our guard-dog bacteria
         2. internal - intestinal
      3. Food manufacture bacteria and fungi
             cheese, wine, beer, sourkraut, pickles, cole slaw...
             pepper, coffee, tea, many spices...
      4. Chemical manufacture
             biofuels, dyes, glycerol, alcohols...

2. The van Neil School - using microbes to study fundamental life processes
   1. Advantages:
          FAST growth
          Minimal space
          Minimal cells - no extraneous things - not even nuclei.
   2. Molecular biology
   3. Metabolic studies
   4. Microbes can be used like chemicals - poured, diluted...
          Bacteria, fungi, viruses
          bacteriology, phycology, virology

3. General Bacteriology
   1. Classification by shapes
          bacilliform (rod-shaped), coccalform (spherical), spirillum, spirochaete / strepto-, staphylo-
   2. Classification by stains - Gram stain, acid-fast stain....
   3. Classification by patterns of flagellation
          peritrichous, polar, axial, non-flagellated
   4. Classification by biochemical methods
      1. Aerobic, anaerobic, facultative
      2. Their nutrition - what sorts of things can they eat? What sorts of things must they have in their diets?
      3. Their products - make acids, alcohols, what?
             IMViC tests
      4. Temperature tolerances

   5. Qualitative microbiology
   6. Quantitative microbiology
          How does one count bacteria?
              cfu, turbidity, Coulter Counter, microscopic count, comparative count (vs RBC's)

4. Cultivation methods and techniques
       Aseptic technique
       Sterilization methods
       Liquid culture - as in beer and wine
       "Solid" culture - as on agar gels in petri plates

5. Storage techniques
   1. Short term - petri plates and liquid cultures
   2. Medium term - "slants" and "stabs"
   3. Long term - lyophilization (freeze-dried in skim milk)

Type Bacteria:*

    Escherichia coli (E. coli): a peritrichously flagellated, facultative, Gram-negative meso-thermic rod having simple nutrition (only needing a single carbon source) with a normal habitat of mammalian large intestines. IMViC tests: + + - -.

    Bacillus subtilis (B. subtilis): a peritrichously flagellated, aerobic, Gram-positive meso-thermic spore-forming rod having simple nutrition with a normal habitat in soils.

    Streptococcus lactis (Strep. lactis): a non-flagellated, anaerobic, Gram-positive meso-thermic, chain-forming sphere having a highly-complex nutrition with a normal habitat in living leaves, on mucous membranes, in the slime-coatings of algae, in milk and milk products, and in mammalian infant intestines. They are contact killers (inject bactericins) of most other prokaryotes.

* English: one bacterium, two bacteria (as per Latin grammar). Español: una bacteria, dos bacterias.