Scribd
Upload
379 views12 pages

Useful Microbes Presentation

Microbes play many beneficial roles including aiding food production and human health. They are used to make yogurt, cheese, and alcohol, and assist with sewage treatment and nitrogen fixation for plants. Most microbes are necessary for survival or beneficial, and can be used industrially. Microbes help plants grow through rhizobacteria in soil and cyanobacteria produce oxygen in oceans. They decompose organic materials and are crucial for nutrient recycling. Probiotics are live microorganisms that promote health when consumed.

Uploaded by

Nicolas Jay
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
379 views12 pages

Useful Microbes Presentation

Microbes play many beneficial roles including aiding food production and human health. They are used to make yogurt, cheese, and alcohol, and assist with sewage treatment and nitrogen fixation for plants. Most microbes are necessary for survival or beneficial, and can be used industrially. Microbes help plants grow through rhizobacteria in soil and cyanobacteria produce oxygen in oceans. They decompose organic materials and are crucial for nutrient recycling. Probiotics are live microorganisms that promote health when consumed.

Uploaded by

Nicolas Jay
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 12

Useful Microbes

Microbes can be beneficial to us


• Used in food – yogurt,
cheese, sauerkraut
• Decompose dead things
• E-coli in your stomach
• Sewage treatment
• Nitrogen fixation –
convert nitrogen from
air to a form that plants
can use.
Useful Microbes

There are billions of microbes and lots more we


haven’t discovered yet

Most of these microbes are either


• Necessary for our survival
• Good for us
• Can be used for our benefit in industry
In Nature
Microbe – plant Interaction Roots
– Many microbes are found in
nature and help plants to
grow

– Rhizobacteria found in the


soil fixate nitrogen which is
required for many crops to
grow
Microbes
In Nature

• Oxygen production
– Cyanobacteria or
‘blue-green algae’
produce oxygen in
the ocean
In Nature
• Decomposition
– Defined as the breakdown of raw
organic materials to a finished
compost

– The fungi invade the organic


matter in soils first and are then
followed by bacteria.

– Without this recycling of inorganic


nutrients, primary productivity on
the globe would stop.
In the Food Industry
• Cheese and yogurt
– Lactic acid fermentation produces
yogurt and cheese. Some fungi are
also used to make the cheese turn
blue! Lactobacilli bacteria used in
yogurt and cheese making

• Bread and dough products


– Yeast is used to make bread and
dough products.
• Alcohol Production
– Yeast is also used in alcohol
production when fermentation occursSaccharomyces cerevisiae yeast
without air used in bread making and
alcohol production
In the Food Industry
• Fermentation
– A process during which the bacteria break
down the complex sugars into simple
compounds like carbon dioxide and alcohol.

– Fermentation changes the product from one


food to another.
In Medicine
• Penicillin
– Discovered by Alexander
Flemming in 1928
– Produced by the fungus
Penicillium notatum The fungus Penicillium produces
the antibiotic Penicillin
– One of the most commonly used
antibiotics today
• Vaccines
– Discovered by Edward Jenner in 1796
– Usually made from weak or inactive
versions of the same microbes that
make us ill
Probiotics
• What are they?
– Live microorganisms which when
administered in adequate amount
confer a health benefit on the
host

• What type of bacteria are they?


– Lactobacilli which are part of the
beneficial natural microflora
found in the human gut
Probiotics
How do they work?
– Interacting directly with the disease-causing microbes,
making it harder for them to cause disease

– Reinforce the natural barrier of the digestive tract


protecting against pathogenic microbes

– "Competitive exclusion" in which beneficial microbes


directly compete with disease-causing microbes for food
and other resources, eventually crowding them out

– Interacting with and strengthening the immune system

You might also like