Chapter 1 Vocab
Microorganisms and Microbiology
Terms
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- Bioremediation
- Any process that uses microorganisms or their enzymes to return the natural environment altered by its contaminants to its original condition.
- Transcription
- The process of copying DNA to RNA by an enzyme called RNA polymerase.
- Pathogen
- A disease-causing microorganism.
- Enzyme
- A protein catalyst that functions to speed up chemical reactions.
- Koch's Postulates
- A set of criteria for proving that a given microorganism causes a given disease.
- Cohn
- Ferdinand - discovered endospores in cells
- Ribosomes
- Complexes of RNA and protein that are found in all cells.
- Macromolecules
- Another word for "large molecule"
- Cell
- The fundamental unit of living matter
- Evolution
- A change in the inherite traits of a population from one generation to the next.
- Swan-necked Flask Experiment
- Done by Pasteur to prove his Germ Theory of Disease.
- Beijernick
- As a draper, he used the first microscope to discover prokaryotic cells
- Rumen
- The primary site for microbial fermentation of ingested feed.
- Enrichment Culture
- A method for isolating microorganisms from nature using specific culture media and incubation conditions.
- Pure Culture
- A culture containing a single kind of organism
- Metabolism
- All biochemical recations in a cell.
- Polysaccharide
- Relatively complex carbohydrates that are made up of many monosaccharides joined together by glycosidic bonds.
- Proteomics
- The large-scale study of protein structure and function.
- Nucleoid
- In prokaryotes, an irregularly-shaped region within the cell where the genetic material is localized.
- Cell Membrane
- A semipermeable lipid bilayer found in all cells.
- Petri
- Julius Richard - credited for inventing the petri dish while working for Koch
- Quorum sensing
- The process by which many bacteria coordinate their gene expression according to the local density of their population.
- Nucleic Acid
- A macromolecule composed of nucleotide chains.
- Cytoplasm
- The fluid portion of a cell, bounded by the cell membrane but excluding the nucleus (if present).
- DNA
- The hereditary material of cells and some viruses.
- Reproduction
- Mother cell divides to produce two daughter cells.
- Koch
- Robert - developed four postulates and won the Nobel Prize for his tuberculosis findings.
- van Leeuwenhoek
- "The Father of Microbiology", he contributed to the improvements of the microscope.
- Lipids
- Used as energy storage and part of the cell membrane structure, these molecules are fat-soluble.
- Pasteur
- Louis - a nonbeliever of spontaneous generation and created methods of sterilization.
- Agar
- A gelatinous substance chiefly used as a solid substrate to contain culture medium for microbiological work.
- RNA
- Involved in protein synthesis as messenger, transfer, and ribosomal forms.
- Differentiation
- The process by which a less specialized cell becomes a more specialized cell type.
- Spontaneous Generation
- The hypothesis that living organisms can originiate from nonliving matter.
- Replication
- The process of copying a double-stranded DNA.
- Winogradsky
- Maker of the Winogradsky column, he helped discover anaerobic particles.
- Protein
- Large organic compounds made of amino acids arranged in a linear chain and joined together by peptide bonds between the carboxyl and amino groups.
- Genomics
- The study of an organism's entire genome.
- Translation
- Converting mRNA to tRNA so it can be made into proteins.