Bacterial Growth:
These microorganisms grow optimally below 15°C and make up the largest portion of all prokaryotes on Earth.
What are psychrophiles?
This process achieves complete elimination of all living microbes, including spores and viruses.
What is sterilization?
ATP, phosphoenolpyruvate, and glucose‑6‑phosphate belong to this class of short‑term energy storage molecules that capture the energy released during metabolic oxidation.
What are energy‑rich phosphorylated compounds?
This anabolic process builds lipids two carbons at a time from acetyl‑CoA, with an acyl carrier protein holding the growing chain.
What is fatty acid biosynthesis?
In bacteria, replication begins at this single chromosomal site, where DnaA binds and opens the DNA to start bidirectional synthesis.
What is the oriC?
These bacteria can grow whether oxygen is present or absent, switching between aerobic respiration and fermentation depending on conditions.
What are facultative anaerobes?
A metric of disinfectant potency compares a chemical agent’s ability to kill microbes to that of phenol, assigning a numerical value based on how its effectiveness stacks up under standardized test conditions.
What is the phenol coefficient?
In aerobic respiration, this enzyme catalyzes the final step in which oxygen accepts electrons and protons to form water.
What is oxidoreductase (cytochrome oxidase)?
This photosystem removes electrons from bacteriochlorophyll itself and returns them in a cyclic loop that generates ATP but no reducing power.
What is Photosystem II?
These mobile DNA segments, including insertion sequences and transposons, can move within or between DNA molecules and generate genetic diversity.
What are transposable elements?
Dr. Strummer is growing a culture of Streptococcus pneumoniae in Nutrient broth. He begins by inoculating the nutrient broth with 50 bacteria. He allows the bacteria to grow for 2 hours. The generation time for S. pneumoniae in nutrient broth is 60 minutes. How many bacteria will Dr. Strummer have in his culture at the end of the experiment?
Nt = N0 x 2n ; log10 (Nt/N0) / 0.301 = n ; k = n/t; g = 1/k; g = t/n
What is 200?
These mid‑tier chemical agents work either by disrupting microbial membranes or by oxidizing key enzymes after precipitating proteins.
What are alcohols and iodine‑based disinfectants?
This coenzyme pair enables electron transfer between separate enzymatic reactions, linking oxidation in one step to reduction in another.
What is NAD⁺/NADH?
This single‑protein light‑driven proton pump uses retinal to capture photons, shifting between cis and trans forms to move protons across the membrane.
What is bacteriorhodopsin?
This protein binds ter sites to halt the replisome by blocking helicase activity.
What is Tus?
This conserved cellular program is triggered when rapid environmental shifts threaten protein stability, prompting the up‑regulation of chaperones and membrane‑modifying enzymes to preserve homeostasis.
What is the heat‑shock response?
This device achieves true sterilization by using pressurized steam—typically 121°C at 15 psi—to destroy all microbes, spores, and viruses.
What is an autoclave?
This process occurs when “the P from a phosphorylated substrate is transferred to ADP to form ATP,” catalyzed by phosphorylases and kinases.
What is substrate‑level phosphorylation?
These structures cluster chlorophyll molecules to funnel excitation energy toward a central site where electrons enter the photosynthetic electron transport chain.
What are the antenna complex and reaction center?
These antibiotics stall and collapse replication forks by inhibiting DNA gyrase and Topo IV.
What are quinolones or fluoroquinolones (ex: ciprofloxacin)?
Dr. Strummer is growing a laboratory strain of Pseudomonas aeruginosa in Nutrient Broth. He inoculated the culture broth with 75 bacteria. After 5 hours of growth, Dr. Strummer uses a plate Colony Forming Unit Assay and determines his culture now has 48,000 bacteria. What is the approximate generation time of the bacteria?
Nt = N0 x 2n ; log10 (Nt/N0) / 0.301 = n ; k = n/t; g = 1/k; g = t/n
What is 35 minutes?
This concept helps compare how different bacterial species respond to lethal temperatures by measuring the time required for a 90% population reduction at a specific heat level. This information is often paired with each species’ minimum temperature needed to kill all cells within 10 minutes.
What is the decimal reduction time (D‑value)?
These lipid‑soluble electron carriers move freely within the membrane, transferring electrons between complexes and contributing to proton pumping.
What are quinones/quinols?
This pathway, used by cyanobacteria and chloroplasts, links two photosystems to extract electrons from water, releasing O₂ and producing both ATP and NADPH.
What is the Z‑pathway (of oxygenic photosynthesis)?
This enzyme removes RNA primers from lagging‑strand fragments, and this enzyme seals the remaining nicks.
What are RNase H (or DNA Pol I) and DNA ligase?