Monera

Campbell and Reece, Chapter 27
Note that Appendix Three will also be useful for the diversity lectures

This will be the first in the diversity lectures (march through the kingdoms)
prokaryotes (this lecture), eukaryotes (the other kingdoms)
TRANSPARENCY (Fig. 26.15) 5 kingdoms
When I went to school, there were 2 kingdoms, the other 3 evolved since then.
Seriously there were too many problems with trying to call everything either animals or plants.
TRANSPARENCY (Fig. 27.2) Here is an alternative 3 domain model, 2 of which are prokaryotes.

When I was in second grade, the school health teacher, Mrs Parker, read us a book, Mickey the Microbe, and that experience makes me an expert on microbiology.

TRANSPARENCY (Fig. 27.3)
Shape
cocci-blob (Fig. 27.3 A)
diplococcus - two
streptococci-string (e.g. strep throat)
staphylococci-grapes (e.g. staph infections)
bacilli-rod (Fig. 27.3 B)
spirilla and spirochetes-spiral (Fig. 27.3 C)

One characteristic of monera is that they have a rigid cell wall made of peptidoglycan. That means that they must absorb, they cannot ingest. The chemiheterotrophs (saprobes) are therefore good at biodegradation because they must put out "digestive" enzyme

TRANSPARENCY (Fig. 27.2)
Even though they are rigid, they have flagella (very different from eukaryotic flagella), and organisms like the famous E. coli have positive and negative chemotaxes.

Aerobic vs anaerobic -
The story about anaerobic bacteria that is so famous that everybody should know it. It is about botulism toxin from Clostridium botulinum, endospores killed only with high temperature. They are obligate anaerobes, and the endotoxins are present in improperly canned goods, 1 g kill 15 million by blocking release of vesicles that contain neurotransmitter substances. "Botox" is used as cosmetic, injected into face, blocks muscles, less wrinkles.

Archaebacteria
methanogens (swamp gas)
Extreme halophiles [they like salt] (Fig. 27.14)- (purple membranes contain bacteriorhodopsin - covered later).
Thermoacidophyles hot sulfur (heat stability important in enzymes used for PCR, refer back to biotech lecture).

EXCEPTION to autotrophs being photosynthetic:
Chemisynthetic use sulfur, ammonia, nitrite, put out sulfates and nitrates for soil.

Eubacteria-largely chemiheterotroph
TRANSPARENCY (Fig. 27.5) cell wall, Gram stain
Gram positive-heavy wall, Negative-stain wash out
Antibiotics like penicillin G for Gram + like strep, gonorrhea, syphilis

TRANSPARENCY - Fig. 27.13 - (1) Bacteria (diverse domain); (2) Archaea (medium domain) [(1) and (2) are this chapter]; and (3) Eukarya (the other 4 kingdoms)

Disease-

Famous traditional STD's (VD's) gonorhea, syphilis (spirochete)
famous recent worry Lyme disease from ticks
recently understood that ulcers are caused by Helicobacter pylori
bubonic plague rats flea middle ages
Tuberculosis TB consumption sanatoriums
diphtheria, some pneumonia, paratyphoid, scarlet fever
tetanus muscle clamp lockjaw anaerobic puncture (like botulism, toxin affects neural transmission)
whooping cough (pertussis) DPT vaccine (toxin very important in studying signal transduction)
strep throat (leads to rheumatic fever)
typhoid fever carriers*
cholera fatal diarrhea (toxin very important in studying signal transduction)
leprosy leper colonies,
Salmonella (food = "ptomane" poisoning),
(evolution of resistance in meat and eggs with antibiotics fed in animal husbandry)
evololution of antibiotic resistance in syphilis (spirochete), gonnorhea
toxic shock (tampons)
Leigionnaires' (1970's Philadelphia, took several years to find cause)
Staphylococcus = acne,
some pneumonia, paratyphoid, scarlet fever, dysentery
chlamydia like virus common STD (VD)
Rocky Mountain spotted fever typhus (Rickettsia like virus)
mycoplasmas - smallest cells
Anthrax (mostly cattle [also humans, mail terror attacks of Fall, 2001])
fire blight (apple, pear)
crown galls (plants)

*Typhoid Mary (Mary Mallon) Irish immigrant, in the 1900-1906 period, cases involved in her being a cook until epidemiological investigation found her. She had an infection in her gallbladder. Detained at Riverside Hospital for 3 years. Later, released then detained again for the rest of her life (25 years) - died in 1938. Caused 1300 cases of typhoid fever.

Advantages-biodegradation,sewage
nitrogen fixation,
actinomycetes produce streptomycin, chloramphenicol,
tetracycline, cyanobacteria (blue-green) algae
nitrogen fixation nodules - alfalfa, soy clover
for rice blue green algae - cyanobacteria heterocysts
yogart, cheeze, saurkraut, coco
enzymes for industry
Chemisynthetic use sulfur, ammonia, nitrite,
put out sulfates and nitrates for soil.
cows sheep goats cellulose
make vit K and B12

This page was last updated 7/31/02

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