Introduction to microorganisms

Prof. Marshall Keyster

Department of Biotechnology
New Life Sci Building
Core 1, Floor 2
Room: 2.15

Chapter 1
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Life as we know it...

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 Microbiology
Eukaryotic microorganisms possess
Microbiology derived from Greek membrane-bound cell organelles and
μῑκρος, mīkros, "small"; βίος, bios, include fungi and protists
"life"; and -λογία, -logia
Prokaryotic organisms is classified as
To study microorganisms that are: lacking membrane-bound organelles
unicellular (single cell), multicellular (cell and include eubacteria and
colony), or acellular (lacking cells) archaeabacteria

Viruses have been variably classified as

Microbiology is the study of microscopic organisms, as they have been considered
organisms, such as bacteria, viruses, either as very simple microorganisms or
archaea, fungi , animals and protozoa. very complex molecules

This discipline includes fundamental Traditionally relied on culture, staining,

research on the biochemistry, and microscopy
physiology, cell biology, ecology,
evolution and clinical aspects of Microbiologists often rely on extraction
microorganisms, including the host or detection of nucleic acid, either DNA
response to these agents or RNA sequences 3
 Branches of microbiology
Pure Applied
Bacteriology: The study of bacteria Medical microbiology
Mycology: The study of fungi Pharmaceutical microbiology
Protozoology: The study of protozoa Microbial biotechnology: The
Phycology/algology: The study of algae manipulation of microorganisms at the
Immunology: The study of the immune genetic and molecular level to generate
system useful products
Virology: The study of viruses. Food microbiology
Microbial ecology: The relationship Agricultural microbiology
between microorganisms and their Plant microbiology and Plant pathology
environment Soil microbiology
Microbial genetics: The study of how genes Environmental microbiology:
are organized and regulated in microbes Microbial ecology
Microbial taxonomy: The naming and Microbially mediated nutrient
classification of microorganisms. cycling
Exo microbiology (or Astro microbiology): Geomicrobiology
The study of microorganisms in outer Microbial diversity
space Bioremediation
Biological agent: The study of those Microbial ecology
microorganisms which are being used in Water microbiology
weapon industries Aeromicrobiology (or Air microbiology) 4
50% biological carbon
Microbes
Elements

Oxygen

90% biological nitrogen Nutrients

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 6
Universal Phylogenetic tree
 Members
Bacteria Archaea
• Usually single-celled organisms • Unique ribosomal RNA sequences
• Cell walls that contain the structural • lack peptidoglycan in their cell walls
molecule peptidoglycan • Unique membrane lipids
• Found everywhere • Some have unusual metabolic
• Some bacteria cause disease characteristics
• Some have beneficial roles • Found in extreme environments
cycling elements • Pathogenic archaea have not yet been
oxygen identified

Eukarya (microorganisms) Viruses

Protists or Fungi • Acellular entities that needs a host cell
• Protists - generally larger than to replicate
procaryotes and include unicellular • Smallest of all microbes
algae, protozoa, slime molds, and water • Cause many animal and plant diseases
molds • Infect bacteria and archaea
• Epidemics that have shaped human
• Fungi are a diverse group of history
microorganisms that range from smallpox, rabies, influenza,
unicellular forms (yeasts) to molds and AIDS, the common cold
mushrooms some cancers 7
 Two sides of a coin...
Helpful Harmful
Aid in digestion Bacterial diseases:
Nitrogen fixation Tuberculosis
Genetic engineering Pink eye
Important in: Cholera
Bread Black death
cheese
wine Viral diseases:
beer Common cold
vinegar Flu
milk Acquired Immune Deficiency
antibiotics Syndrome
probiotics Zika Fever
vaccines Ebola
vitamins
enzymes (e.g. Taq polymerase) Fungal diseases:
amino acids Athlete's foot
polyesters Ringworm
polysaccharides
bioremediation Protozoa:
insulin Malaria 8
 Discovery
• Investigators suspected their existence and responsibility for disease

• Roman philosopher Lucretius (about 98-55 B.C.) and the physician

Girolamo Fracastoro (1478-1553) suggested that disease was caused by
invisible living creatures

• Francesco Stelluti (1625-1630) - the earliest microscopic observations

• Robert Hooke - the first published drawing of a microorganism (1665)

• Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723) - the first person to publish

extensive, accurate observations of microorganisms

• In his spare time he constructed simple microscopes composed of double

convex glass lenses held between two silver plates

• Could magnify around 50 to 300 times

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• Considered as the “father of microbiology”
• Leeuwenhoek did not author any books; his discoveries
came to light through correspondence with the Royal
Society, which published his letters
• Van Leeuwenhoek wanted to see the quality of the thread,
better than the then-current magnifying lenses available

“animalcules” 10
 Spontaneous generation (SG)
• That living organisms could develop from non-living matter

• Obsolete body of thought on the ordinary formation of living organisms

without descent from similar organisms

• Typically, the idea was that certain forms such as fleas could arise from
inanimate matter such as dust, or that maggots could arise from dead flesh

• Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) thought some of the simpler invertebrates could arise
by spontaneous generation

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Name the scientist??
 Spontaneous generation (SG)
• John Needham (1713-1781) - He thought organic matter contained a vital force
that could confer the properties of life on non-living matter

• Lazzaro Spallanzani (1729-1799) - He proposed that air carried germs to the

culture medium

SG theorist - “heating the air in sealed flasks destroyed its ability to support life”

Air experiments:
• Theodore Schwann (1810-1882)
• Georg Friedrich Schroder and Theodor von Dusch

Felix Pouchet vs Louis Pasteur (1822-1895)

• Felix Pouchet sent a paper in 1859 to the French Academie des sciences in which
he claimed to offer experimental proof of SG

• He filled a flask with boiling water and closed it ‘airtight’. He then plunged the
flask into a mercury trough (used to rapidly cool the flask). Once cooled, he added
oxygen and a small bundle of calcined hay (calcination is a thermal treatment
process) which consistently resulted in the appearance of a fungi
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 Felix Pouchet vs Louis Pasteur
• Pouchet concluded that atmospheric air was not and cannot be responsible for
the microbes

The Academy of Sciences proposed the following topic for the 1862 Alhumbert
prize in natural science: “To attempt by means of well-designed experiments to
cast new light on the question of so-called spontaneous generations

• Pasteur not only wanted the lucrative prize money but he wanted to proof his
theory on fermentation and disproves SG

Pasteur proofed that microorganisms are in the air

Cotton fibers

Pasteur discovered the source of contamination (Pouchets experiment)

Nutrient source - mercury

Pasteur reproduces various microorganisms

Importance of working sterile

Pasteur reasserts his position that lack of germs results in sterility of a substance
Pasteur’s swan neck flasks
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 End of SG

Pasteur’s swan neck flasks

• John Tyndall dealt a final blow to spontaneous generation in 1877 by

demonstrating that dust did indeed carry germs and that if dust was absent, broth
remained sterile even if directly exposed to air

• Tyndall provided evidence for the existence of exceptionally heat-resistant forms

of bacteria

• Ferdinand Cohn (1828-1898) independently discovered the existence of heat-

resistant bacterial endospores 14
 Golden Age
Microorganisms and Disease

• Roman philosopher Lucretius (about 98-55 B.C.) and the physician Girolamo
Fracastoro (1478-1553) suggested that disease was caused by invisible living
creatures

• Most believed that disease was due to causes such as supernatural forces,
poisonous vapors called miasmas, and imbalances among the four humors
(blood, phlegm, yellow bile [choler], and black bile [melancholy]) thought to
be present in the body

Start of the germ theory of disease

1835: Agostino Bassi (1773-1856) first showed a microorganism could cause

disease by demonstrating that a silkworm disease was due to a fungal infection

1845: MJ Berkeley proved that the great Potato Blight of Ireland was caused by a
water mold

1853: Heinrich de Bary showed that smut and rust fungi caused cereal crop diseases
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 Golden Age
Microorganisms and Disease

Start of the germ theory of disease

Joseph Lister (1827-1912) developed system or method for sterile surgery

Instruments were heat sterilized, and phenol was used on surgical dressings

Koch’s Postulates

Robert Koch (1843-1910) established the relationship between Bacillus anthracis and
anthrax; also isolated Mycobacterium tuberculosis which causes tuberculosis

However, the postulate is at times not feasible. For instance, some organisms, like
Mycobacterium leprae, the causative agent of leprosy, cannot be isolated in pure
culture

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 Golden Age
Koch’s Postulates

1. Microorganism must be present in every case

of the disease but absent from healthy
individuals.
2. The suspected microorganism must be
isolated and grown in pure cultures.
3. The same disease must result when the
isolated microorganism is inoculated into a
healthy host.
4. The same microorganism must be isolated
again from the diseased host.
Koch was awarded Nobel Prize in 1905 for this
work – proved that TB was caused by
Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

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 Studying microbial pathogens
Isolation of Microorganisms

• During Koch’s studies, it became necessary to isolate suspected bacterial pathogens in

pure media. Many of the media he developed is still in use today

• Initially, he used the sterile surfaces of cut, boiled potatoes: not always successful →
changed to meat extracts and digested protein (similar to body fluids)

• Gelatin added to liquid medium to solidify BUT not ideal → gelatin melted @ T>28ºC
and can be digested by many microbes
• Fannie Eilshemius Hess (1850-1934) suggested use of agar → 100ºC to melt, <50ºC to
solidify and not digested by many bacteria

• Richard Petri (1852-1921) developed petri dish, a sterile plate to hold culture media

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 Other important developments in microbiology
• Charles Chamberland (1851-1908) discovered viruses and their role in disease using a
constructed porcelain bacterial filter in 1884.

• Dimitri Ivanowski (1864-1920) and Martinus Beijerink (1851-1931) studied tobacco

mosaic disease using Chamberland’s filter.
• Infectious agent passed through and Beijerink proposed the agent as a “filterable
virus”

• Pasteur and Pierre Roux (1853-1933) studied bacterium causing chicken cholera
• Discovered that incubating these cultures for long periods between transfers
resulted in the cultures losing their ability to cause the disease: attenuated
cultures.
• Pasture called the attenuated culture a vaccine (vacca = cow in latin) in honour of
Edward Jenner (1749-1823) as he used material from cowpox lesions to protect
people against smallpox in earlier years

• Alexander Flemming discovered that the fungus, Penicillium sp., produced an antibiotic
which he called penicillin in 1929
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• Sergio Winogradsky (1856-1953) made many contributions to soil microbiology. He
discovered that soil bacteria could oxidize Fe, S and ammonia to obtain energy and
many species could incorporate CO2 into organic matter

• Isolated anaerobic nitrogen-fixing bacteria; studied the decomposition of cellulose

• Together with Beijerink, developed the enrichment-culture technique and the use
of selective media

• Early 40’s, Microbiology established closer relationship with Genetics and

Biochemistry; microorganisms are extremely useful experimental subjects

• e.g. Study of relationship between genes and enzymes; evidence that DNA is the
genetic material;

• Recently, Microbiology been a major contributor to the rise of Molecular Biology

• Studies on Genetic code; mechanisms of DNA, RNA, and Protein synthesis; regulation of
gene expression; control of enzyme activity

• Development of Recombinant DNA Technology and Genetic Engineering

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 THE FUTURE OF MICROBIOLOGY
• Microbiology has had a profound influence on society

• What about the future (for the discipline)?

• What are some of the most promising areas for future microbiological research and
their potential practical impacts?

• What kinds of challenges do microbiologists face?

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