Microbiology Answers

From the negative stain below describe the morphology and arrangement of the bacteria.

Your boss has done a little reading about microorganisms, but he finds it all pretty complicated. “It’s like a foreign language!” he complains. “I have to face the press to explain our idea that microbes might be responsible for all the damage to ELVIS. I think that it will help my press conference

presentation a lot if I can use some visual aids. What I want to do is explain to my audience what

bacteria look like. You know... the functional architecture of bacteria and how they might be able to

degrade polyurethane. I think that eukaryotes might be too complicated for this audience, so I just

want to show them what Gram-negative bacteria look like in a schematic diagram. I’ve put together

this diagram of a typical Gram-negative cell. Take a look at it and make any corrections you think

are necessary. Notice that I not only labeled the features, I also indicated the major biochemical

composition and function(s) of each main feature. Oh yeah ... this fi gure will probably make it into

lots of newspapers, magazines, and web sites, so it needs to be scientifi cally correct. We wouldn’t want

to make DuPunt look stupid, would we? I’ve already done most of the work. Just proofread it and

make any necessary corrections.”

1.    What kind of mouse model will you use in these studies? Briefly explain.

a. You want to study the innate immune response against a pathogen.

b. You want to study the adaptive immune response against a pathogen

How you will handle spills release of BSL-3 pathogens in a laboratory? Give at least 5 steps.

You have access to a field site that contains soil contaminated with a gasoline spill. You work for a company that deals with clean-up of polluted sites. You decide that you want to try to use “bioaugmentation” – the addition of microbial cultures with suitable metabolic capabilities to a contaminated site in an effort to enhance degradation. 

i)               Describe how you would set up an experiment that would allow you to obtain a microbial strain capable of degrading toluene, a component of gasoline. 

ii)             Mention the experimental set-up, the types of media used, experimental controls (if you think they might be needed).

iii)           How you would confirm that the microorganism(s) that you obtain are indeed capable of degrading toluene?