Spore No More
This heat-based food safety process reduces the number of vegetative microbial forms in liquids like milk and juice without achieving full sterilization
Pasteurization
This category of genes code for proteins
You wake up on the morning of your microbiology exam, so you know that you need a good breakfast. You decide on a healthy bowl of cereal. You open the fridge and look for the milk, and only find a carton containing pasteurized milk with an expiration date of more than a month ago. What kind of bacteria will be thriving in the milk?
Thermoduric Bacteria
This term describes bacterial cells that are capable of taking up free DNA from their environment during transformation
Competent cells
This type of radiation is most effective for sterilization because it causes double-stranded DNA breaks in microorganisms, leading to irreversible cellular damage - Ionizing Radiation
Ionizing Radiation
Origin of Replication
You are working in a lab and need to choose the most effective way to remove microbes from eye drops. What method would be most effective for a heat sensitive liquid like this?
Filtration
This process occurs when a donor bacterium transfers a plasmid to a recipient cell through a pilus
Bacterial Conjugation
This gaseous sterilizing agent is classified as sporicidal because it alkylates proteins and DNA, allowing it to destroy even highly resistant bacterial endospores
Ethylene oxide gas
In prokaryotic cells, this process allows ribosomes to begin synthesizing a protein while the mRNA is still being transcribed from DNA
Co-transcriptional translation
You are asked to sterilize some plastic medical equipment at a clinic you are working at. What agent would you use to do so?
Ethylene oxide gas
This genetic process involves the exchange of DNA between two molecules, producing a new combination of genes
DNA recombination
This common antiseptic disinfects wounds by producing toxic reactive oxygen species that damage cellular components of microorganisms
Hydrogen Peroxide
In eukaryotic mRNA, this sequence of base pairs code for nonsense regions and need to be cut out, which tends to make transcription and translation longer
Introns
You are working in the NICU and are instructed to sterilize a bunch of plastic baby bottles using UV lights. Is this an effective way to sterilize these bottles? Why?
No, UV radiation penetrates plastic poorly and is easily blocked by solids
In prokaryotes, this process allows transcription and translation to occur simultaneously in the cytoplasm
Co-transcriptional translation
This process involves freeze-drying microbes to preserve them (hint: this is NOT a method to kill bacteria)
Lyophilization
These three mechanisms allow for bacteria to limit protein production by controlling gene expression at different stages
1. Transcriptional Control
2. Translational Control
3. Post-translational Control
You are working in a nursing home and caring for several patients who have C. diff. You are told to use chlorine to clean the surfaces in the patient’s room. Will this agent kill the C. diff spores?
Yes, chlorine is sporicidal
In experiments with Streptococcus pneumoniae, Frederick Griffith showed that harmless bacteria became virulent after exposure to this material
Heat-killed virulent bacteria