You are on page 1of 12

Transcribed by Kevin Lin Lecture Date: Tuesday, July 1, 2014

1
[Microbiology] [1] [Introduction to Microbiology] by [Dr. Boylan]

[no slide] [-]
[Dr. Li] Good morning everyone. Hello, 8 oclock! Good morning everyone. Better. I
know & I hope you had a resting break and ready to take new challenge or
challenges. I know the first year is harder and I dont want to scare you but I just
want to warn you that second year is even harder and Im sure you will all do well. I
heard so much about this class. Very intelligent and youll do very well. Some of
you take a break, some of you doing research, some of you travelling, but now its
time to get back to the class. Microbiology is one of the first classes to get you
started. I just want to take two minutes of Dr. Boylans lecture. By the way, all these
images are from my lab, its not from textbook. Just want to show you some fun in
doing research. And also the topic is very interesting and fun. Im a strong believer
as health professionals, or even were dentists, we working with patient, we provide
with health care. We are medical professionals. We need to know particularly
working with oral health, we need to know whats going on in the oral cavity, who is
the good guys, who is the bad guys, what kind of bacteria will call the pathogenic or
passengers of pathogenic bacteria: which one related to the dental caries, which one
related to the periodontal diseases, or mucositis, oral cancers. Theres so much we
need to learn. And we also particularly want to know the fundamental things, the
basic things. What is the cell walls? What is the mechanism of bacteria that can
grow and develop resistance to antibodies? Those information are very important.
So. Again, well start in the summer, still summer, and were still in the summer
mood, but I really want you guys to pay attention to this course, although its only
1.6 credit, but I think its very vigorous. Last year - I just want to give you some
statistics. Last year class, the mean not the median for the midterm was 88
points, and the final is 84. And there were 13 failures in the class. So I dont want to
scare you but you really need to pay attention to the details and study well, manage
time well. I already upload all the syllabus on the NYU Classes. And Dr. Boylan
already uploaded first 5 lectures on the website. And I will make sure every
lecturers will post their lecture materials before the lecture and you are strongly
recommended to review the lecture before coming to the class. I want to- I dont
know if you noticed, this time, this year they did not give you a lot of time to study
for the midterm and the final. Last year or in the past, they always give you a
weekend to study exams. If you look at the schedule, there is not much time. So I
strongly recommend you to really manage your course material wisely and manage
your time wisely and pay attention to the objectives. In the syllabus, it states very
clearly what objectives the professor expects you to know to learn. And also
according to the departmental policy, that were not going to take any challenges for
the question in the exams. And you have a wonderful, wonderful curriculum
representative, I know that. Everybody talk about Rola now. So if you have any
questions, send to her and I will discuss with her any concerns or any questions you
may have. And I invite a full NYU distinguished professors, and theyre all in the
field of microbiology, theyre wonderful. And I just want to give you another
statistic (because Im scientist) and our class, NYU class has been doing very very
well in the microbiology component in the board exam. Of course our Dr. Boylan is
Transcribed by Kevin Lin Lecture Date: Tuesday, July 1, 2014

2
one of the- I would call the classic microbiologist and very dedicated educators and
make our students really, really know this material, understand material really well
and have been doing very well on the board exam. And anyway, theres 23 lectures,
each one is one hour of course. Attendance is strongly recommended. And I believe
different people have different point of view of how to study, but for me if I attend
the class, I really learn better and I strongly recommend the students come to the
class. Lots of details you just cant get it by p-p-podcast. Anyway, but this is new
generation, new things. And Im probably old-fashioned and but I do strongly
recommend you guys to come the class. And I have a policy written in the syllabus
for those who really come to most of the class will get extra maximum extra three
points at the end of the course. You dont need it? Fine. You want to study in your
bedroom? Fine. Its up to you. Im sorry, my name is Yihong Li and Im a professor
in the Basic Science department and my address in this building, 10th floor. My
email is right here (yihong.li@nyu.edu) and phone number (212-998-9607) and
office hours by appointment. I know theres three-hundred sixty some of you and
before, you know. Anyway, work with your curriculum representative and I will try
to help you as much as I can and make this enjoy experience. And now Im giving
this lecture microphone. Theres no quizzes, theres no conferences anymore, I
changed the format a little bit. Okay. Thats all I need to say.

[1]- [Introduction to Microbiology Bacterial Cytology]
[Dr. Boylan] Good morning everybody. Its funny what Dr. Li said about last years
class, and how they did in the course and did very well. But I remember they used
to microbiology in the first year, the D1 students. And they do well too. But then the
course did become D2 second year students just like you guys are. The second year
students, you always have the same concern. How is the first year class compared to
us, right? Are they better than us? We must be better than them. When they take
exams in microbiology, they must not do as well as our class did, right? We gotta be
the better class. Well, ya theyre pretty good, but I always say, whatever you do
when you give the course in the first year of microbiology, dont give them any easy
exams, okay? And I say, okay, Ill see what I can do about that. Then of course, then
they go on to D2 and D3. D3, the students always say, well how are students in the
second and first years? They think they have it pretty hard. Wait till they get to the
third year. Then theyll find out how hard it really is here. And by the way,
whatever you do, dont give them any easy exams like you did us, will you please? Ill
see what I can do. So well try to make the exams pretty fair, I think at least, if not,
easy-fair. And if you study the slides and come to most of the lectures I think youll
do okay. So were gonna start off today, microbiology. My name is Dr. Boylan, my
office right now is in the VA, but were being kicked out of there as youve probably
know. And Im not sure where my new office will be, but I think its gonna be on the
8th floor here. But thats still up for grabs. Ill let you know and I guess in a month
or so. They gotta find room for us because theyre kicking the faculty out the VA.
Anyhow, well start microbiology today and we have two lectures today, 8 and 9,
and another one on Thursday at 1 oclock.

[2]- [MICRIOBIOLOGY Study of MICROORGANISMS (MICROBES)]
Transcribed by Kevin Lin Lecture Date: Tuesday, July 1, 2014

3
[Dr. Boylan] So microbiology, the big picture is that were gonna study
microorganisms, microbes. And these consist of the follow four types of bugs:
bacteria, viruses, fungi, and protozoans. Well spend most of this course as an
introductory course, like Dr. Li says, only 23 lectures. There will be another course
that starts in late October on infectious diseases. So this is kind of the introduction
to that. This does lay the basic foundation for that course in infectious diseases
where we talk about anthrax and staph infections, tuberculosis, influenza, stuff like
that. This is the basis for that course thats coming around. Overall general picture
of microbes. Well start with bacteria. Spend the next couple lectures on that. Have
a lecture also on viruses. And well talk about what all these things are later. Fungi,
and, like yeast and other things and protozoans. We wont spend too much time on
protozoans in this course. Protozoans will cause infections like malaria, sleeping
sickness, and many other very serious infections, which are not really that prevalent
in the United States. We do cover them in Infectious Diseases at the end of the
course, well discuss some of the more popular protozoan infections like malaria and
couple others.
The beginning was about 300 years ago.

[3]- [MICRIOBIOLOGY Study of microorganisms Viruses, bacteria, fungi,
protozoans]
[Dr. Boylan] but heres another picture also of what were going to look at. Dont
worry too much about everything on this slide, but just to give you an idea of the
size of these different microorganisms: virus, bacteria, fungi, and protozoans. Here,
lets take a look here at small bacteria, Richettsia. Heres another, heres bacterium.
Red blood cells, so theyre about the same size of Red blood cells. About a
micrometer, or a micron, is the size of bacterium. One to three to five micrometers.
Micrometer is also known as a micron, shown here. And thats about one millionth
of a meter. So bacteria are very small that you cant see it with the naked eye. You
have to use the light microscope to see bacteria. Viruses, shown here (HIV,
proteovirus) and heres for comparison you see a strand of DNA double helix, are
smaller. Too small to be seen with the light microscope. Heres the range of the
light microscope. The smallest object you can see is less than 1 micrometer to much
larger. Electron microscope, well talk about what that is also uhh, you can use that
to see viruses that are too small to see with light microscope. And even some
micromolecules can be seen with the electron microscope, where instead of light
like we have here, use electron beams. Electrons in electron microscopes to magnify
things thousands, even millions of times. So we get an idea of what they look like
with electron microscope. So here we have light microscope - and other things we
can see with the unaided eye, some larger yeast. Uhh the single-celled yeast can
only be seen with the light microscope, but sometimes they form large molec uhh
stuff like mushrooms and those are fungi made up of millions of yeast cells. And
heres the protozoans, the parasites, the tapeworms, and flukes, other things well
talk about later, are much larger. They go from the smallest being the viruses, the
bacteria, to the fungi, and some protozoa- about the same, but usually the fungi and
the protozoa are similar in size, but we can see you can also have a very large
Transcribed by Kevin Lin Lecture Date: Tuesday, July 1, 2014

4
multicellular protozoan organisms that are very, very large. So micrometer and
microns, the size of bacteria: 1 to 5 micrometers.

[4]- [Why study microbiology?]
[Dr. Boylan] Why study microbiology? As Dr. Li said, two of the most common
infections in the world are oral infections in the oral cavity: caries and periodontal
disease. Have you had any lectures yet on caries? You must have. What causes
caries, what bacterium? Ill give you the name, Streptococcus mutans. Ok, youll hear
a lot about that bacterium in the course as well, and Infectious Disease course. And
periodontal disease both occur in the oral cavity, caries of course is cavities,
demineralization of the enamel of the tooth. And periodontal disease, periodontal,
perio- (around), -dontal (the tooth) are infections of the gingiva that support
the tooth. Infections of the bone also that support the tooth. So those are also
caused by bacteria. And the bacteria that cause these two oral infections (caries and
periodontal disease) are very dissimilar, not the same ones at all. Theyre
completely different. Caries Streptococcus mutans, a gram-positive bacterium, as
well talk about. And then gram-negative bacteria well discuss also later that cause
periodontal disease and loss of teeth. Same issue going into endodontics, youll talk
about root canals and infections of the pulp, can be very painful infections leading to
loss of teeth. Endodontic infections are caused by bacteria. Some mucosal
infections, buccal mucosa. Infections of the mouth. Yeast infections, fungal like
Candidiasis. Herpes infections. So a lot of these different oral infections are caused
by these were going to discuss in the course bacteria, viruses, and fungi and etc.
Many other infections. In this course, well stick mainly to the basics once again and
in the other course, Infectious Disease, well talk more about all kinds of infections
that you should be aware of because youre gonna be dealing with patients who
have these infections. Were going to stick to those infections later on that are the
most prevalent ones or good examples of types of infections youll come across. So
we can discuss this with other people in the medical profession when you are
practicing and have patients with these diseases and infections.

[5]- [Anton von Leeuwenhoek]
[Dr. Boylan] The start about microbiology, about 300 years ago. And theres the
fellow, my hero right there, my good buddy, Anton von Leeuwenhoek. As Dr. Li said,
Im a classic microbiologist. I didnt go back quite as far as Anton here. He lived
about 300 years ago. So in 1714, he was studying bacteria. He had a little
microscope that he made himself and it wasnt anything like the microscope were
going to talk about later, the compound microscopes. But you can see what it is
right there. This microscope, this is his microscope that he devised. And all it really
is, is this little sphere of glass in there. A sphere of glass that he could hold up like
this and look at things. Leeuwenhoek was actually, among many professions that he
had, was also a haberdasher, or he worked with clothing and cloth and he had to
inspect the cloth, clothing he would get, the fabric and see how fine it was. Was it
really as good as the salesman tries to tell him? So hed look at the threads and count
the threads. He had his little spherical piece of glass that could magnify things up to
300 times. 300 times magnification when he uses his little... So he got tired of
Transcribed by Kevin Lin Lecture Date: Tuesday, July 1, 2014

5
walking around like this, inspecting things. He started looking at other things other
than his cloth. Hed look at whats in water, rain water, whats in saliva, whats in
pond. Hed look at everything. He was the original. So everything that he would
come across, he said, I wanna see when I use this little microscope, this sphere that
magnifies things, whats there, whats living in there? And so he did that and uhh he
said lets make some supporting structures for this little microscope, this little glass
sphere here. It was only about 8 micrometers 8 millimeters in the diameter, very
small. So he had this brass plate here, hed stick it in the hole there and wedge it in.
And then his specimen that he wanted to look there, hed put it in the tip there, a
little pointy tip of some kind of metal that he had. And of course if you ever use the
microscope, you know youd have to focus it up and down, back and forth, to get
your image in sight so you can visualize it. He did the same thing, he had screws
here that would move it up, the specimen, move it up, move it back and forth, in and
out, and finally he would be able to see the specimen, look at whats in saliva, whats
in plaque. What you call the scum on his patients teeth. And heres about the size of
it right here. And I think there are a few he made the funny thing was, you know,
he said, okay hed look at something, and the next day look at something else, and
the next day look at something else, on the same one microscope that he had here
no, he decided it was just too tedious to do that, to focus his specimens on one
microscope. He built about a hundred, maybe over a hundred microscopes (I forget
how many) and left his specimens on each of the hundred different microscopes, so
he would go back and see what was there. And there are quite a few of these that
are around from 300 years ago. And I know it was 300 years ago, he was looking at
these things, because every day, this was kind of his hobby. He would go home and
look at something new or something striking that struck his eye and he would look
at it and he would make the little drawings like we see here. This is what Anton
saw. He called them, these bacteria shown here, he called them animalcules. He
thought they were small animals, bacteria. He thought they really were animals that
were just so small you couldnt see their fine detail, that they probably, these things
if you magnified them even more, youd see their arms and their legs and they
probably had lungs like humans. Not at all, of course. But these small animalcules
and he described the three basic shapes of bacteria that we know today. Cocci are
round cells. Youll see some grow like this in clusters, some cocci or round cells
grow in chains, others in pairs, look like kidney beans. Here are two, another pair.
Here are different types of rods. So spheres, cocci. Rods, shown here. You can see
their all rod bacteria, they call them all rods, but you can see the variations in the
shape. Nice, rectangular cells. Point ends. Kind of thickening at one end. Very thin,
etc. And curved cells. And then he also saw spirochetes, shown here. And this is
probably the one well this is the one here, if he drew this, this is the one that
causes syphilis (C-2). Thats the spirochete that causes syphilis. Regularly-spaced
coils in it. And then the other type of spirochetes are loose coils. So he saw all these
things. So you think, the funny thing was he did this work and he made his drawings
and he sent them into the royal academy in London to be published in their papers
over and over. Many papers were published describing his work, but nobody ever
caught onto one fundamental idea. That these were the organisms that cause
infections in people. There was at that time there was no germ theory out there.
Transcribed by Kevin Lin Lecture Date: Tuesday, July 1, 2014

6
Theres something in the air. We know people get sick as they come in contact with
other sick people. Something must be transmitted from them. Its in the air and we
inhale it, or we eat it, or we drink it. And now he saw, he saw the germs. But
nobody associated the germs with infections. Its incredible. Until about 150 years
later, when Pasteur came along, we will see. But another problem he had, too.
Anton was very secretive about his work. Its really hard for us to imagine today
how he could have seen these bacteria with his little glass sphere that only
magnifies things about 300 times. Because when we use a microscope, a light
microscope, we magnify things about a thousand times to see bacteria well. So I
dont know how he did it, I mean I thought about it, probably some tricks he played
with light. You know he was in his own little lab in the dark. In the room he has
shades on the window and he has a little hole in the shades, perhaps, with sunlight
coming in on his specimen. You know how sometimes youre in a room, and all of a
sudden you see particles of dust in the air that were always there. But until the
sunlight came into the room and bounce off of these little particles, you couldnt see
them. Theyre all around us right now. But I think he probably used tricks with light
to help magnify the size of these bacteria, apparently using light to show them up a
little better when he used his microscope. But its still kind of a mystery how he did
it. He also did not have anybody, he was very secretive also. He didnt tell anybody
how he ground his lenses. The secret to his work was that little glass sphere.
Perfectly round, perfectly sphere. And other people couldnt do it. So they couldnt
duplicate his work. He had no graduate students and wouldnt tell people how he
ground his lenses, so kind of held back the evolve(?) on his science for quite a while,
120-150 years.

[6]- [Mid-to-Late 19
th
century]
[Dr. Boylan] So later on, mid-19
th
century now. So he was 1720, say, 1714. 1860
before the next big development in microbiology came along. And it was really a
time of Louis Pasteur and others. 1860s to 1880s, Louis Pasteur. Down below, you
see Robert Koch, also another microbiologist at that time. And so many others. And
heres a picture on the right, the light microscope that we use today that they used.
And now, now it was easy to see things one after the other. You put a sample on the
slide here, on the stage on your glass slide, look at it. Put it aside, look at another
glass slide over and over again. So you can look at hundreds of different items
everyday using the light microscope, instead of just having this one sphere as
Leeuwenhoek did. So it really, this technology, it was this increasing technology,
now the development of the light microscope that led to the blossoming of the field
of microbiology over hundred years ago. So Louis Pasteur came along and what was
his development? He did so many wonderful things of course in science. Rabies
vaccine, and others. Uhh, but Louis Pasteur, he was an eminent chemist in France
and the problem they were having in France when he was there was that the wine in
France was being spoiled. Something was destroying the wine they were
fermenting and that was one of the main sources of income for all of France. What
is going on here? Louis Pasteur, can you come and help us? So he came and he
looked at- he brought his microscopes with him and he got some samples of wine
that were good wine, drinkable wine, and also some samples of wine that were
Transcribed by Kevin Lin Lecture Date: Tuesday, July 1, 2014

7
spoiled, that were undrinkable. And he would see that in the spoiled wine, there
were bacteria. In the good wine, there were not bacteria, if there were any
microbes, there were only the yeast. We know that wine fermentation and the
grapes you need yeast for alcoholic beverages. So wine, yeast were there, that was
fine, they wouldnt spoil the wine. But bacteria, if they contaminated the wine,
contaminated the grapes, which were used to make the wine, to ferment the wine,
then the wine would be spoiled. So he found that out and they said okay, heres
what you have to do to prevent this from happening, prevent the spoilage of wine.
And then he had the idea, a-ha! moment. He said you know what, bacteria are
making this wine sick. Maybe its bacteria that also are making people sick, too. Its
as simple as that. Just about as simple as that. The germ theory now had a
foundation, as a result of Pasteurs observation that one was sick infected by
bacteria, human infections, many of them also caused by bacteria or other microbes
as we will see. He had the Germ theory of Disease. So now there was that- that
theory was out there all since the time of Hippocrates. Hippocrates said stay away
from people who have this illness or that infection, that boil or that problem. Youre
gonna get infected. Some germs, something in the air. And now, Pasteur showed
what it was; the germs were bacteria. Of course with this light microscope, he
couldnt see viruses, which also caused infections, but that came later on. At the
same time, Robert Koch helped the development of microbiology and especially
bacteriology by being able to grow bacteria in the lab, and also to stain them with
different colored reagents to visualize them more readily with using the light
microscope. So we see here on the left- actually what he started to do, you all heard
of Petri plates and Petri dishes, which we use in the lab and Im sure well get to
later. What Koch initially did was just slice a potato in half and used the flat surface
of the potato to treat bacteria. Hed sample bacteria from people with illnesses and
infections and said, how can I grow them? Potatoes! And [inaudible] they developed
wonderful new component, new food for bacteria that we use even today that we
buy commercially and make in the lab to grow bacteria of all types. He also saw
with his stain- bacteria themselves would be very pale, transparent without any
stain- he came up with different stains to use, different dyes that can be used to help
visualize the bacteria when you put them on a slide such as this. Kochs postulates,
well talk about that later, also contributed to Robert Koch. And youll see later that
these Kochs postulates are ways to attribute a particular infection to a particular
microorganism. So how do you prove for example that anthrax is caused by this
bacterium and not some other one? How do you know that tuberculosis is caused
by this bacterium and not some other bacterium? Well see that later on that his
postulates is a way to prove that this infection is caused by a particular microbial
agent. Thatll come later on. And that period of time, with the Pasteurs discovery of
the germ theory of disease, and Koch and other microbiologists, the field blossomed
in between 1860 to 1880 and even up to World War I, was the golden age of
microbiology, I would say. But really, everything was going very smoothly. They
identified almost every bacterium that caused bacterial infections in humans in the
lab. Not all, not every one. There are still some bacteria that we cannot grow under
laboratory conditions, in the Petri plates. But the [field] really blossomed there in
that period of time. Id say about 1860 to 1880, but really up to 19- about 100 years
Transcribed by Kevin Lin Lecture Date: Tuesday, July 1, 2014

8
ago, First World War began. That shut down all kinds of industrial and scientific
studies worldwide, of course. And that put a halt to a lot of these studies until later
on, when the World War I was over.

[7]- [Viruses]
[Dr. Boylan] So okay, bacteria seen by Pasteur and all these other microbiologists,
and bacteria that cause infections. Then they realized something else about that
time to early 1900s, that there are infections that occur in humans and also in
plants. We know they are infections because they are transmissible from person to
person, from plant to plant, etc. And you see these certain lesions that look like
bacterial infections, some lesions on a person or plant. You bring them back to the
lab, you put them on a glass slide, look at the microscopically, but you dont see any
bacteria. But if you take extracts from these samples that are bacteria-free that have
no bacteria at all, just look like pure liquid, then you put that extract on the plant or
in the human, it will cause an infection. So something smaller than bacteria must
exist, and the impetus for this study, for looking at what these were, was looking for
the problem of Tobacco Mosaic Disease. The time also in Europe, late 1800s, early
1990s, there was a problem throughout Europe that the tobacco leaves, another
major industry of Europe, was being decimated by an infection of the tobacco leaves.
Blisters would occur on the leaves and you couldnt use those to make tobacco. So
then okay, lets go back, lets see whats there. Once again, you see these blisters on
the tobacco leaves, bring it back to the lab, no bacteria. And yet if you got rid of, if
you took the specimens from these blisters, put them onto other tobacco leaves, the
infections would have appeared on them as well, theyd pop up. So there was
something smaller than bacteria, some other germs smaller than bacteria that can
cause infections. Not just in plants like tobacco mosaic leaves, but also in human,
known today as viruses. So virus is the poison. So they knew they existed at that
time. They knew that something had to be there in these specimens. They were
using the transmitted infections from one plant to another, from one human to
another. The poison virus, too small. And it wasnt until 1930s or so, when we
developed the electron microscope that you could begin to see these viruses, that
they actually were these all that time. Now you can see them, and see what they
look like and just because theyre small, doesnt mean they all look the same. They
have different shapes, different morphologies, and different attributes, but it took a
while to actually see what they looked like, the viruses. What are called poison in
Latin. Well talk about a lot of those viruses later on, too.

[8]- [Electron microscope]
[Dr. Boylan] Heres the electron microscope [that] was used. We dont have to go
through all the parts of it, but uhh. Put your specimen here somewhere, therell be
electrons- this isnt a light microscope- this is electron beams are used, electron
guns shoot down here and up from here, and hit your object, your sample. And if
there are viruses in the sample, the specimens here, you will see them. Youll also
see bacteria. Theyre there as well because theyre much bigger than viruses. But
you can see viruses also, with electron microscope.

Transcribed by Kevin Lin Lecture Date: Tuesday, July 1, 2014

9
[9]- [Microbiology today]
[Dr. Boylan] Microbiology today, uhh, is involved in many different aspects of
research, including genetics. Well talk about how important bacteria especially
were in learning all about DNA and how DNA replicates and how genes work and
how genes function and how genes collaborate with each other in chromosome, and
how we count chromosomes, genes. So a lot of work has been done with bacteria
because theyre very simple organisms, well see, easy to grow, easy to replicate, and
easy to study. Bioterrorism. Has everyone heard of a recent problem at the CDC in
Atlanta last couple of days? The CDC, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in
Atlanta, Georgia, a government agency which protects us, which does studies on all
the terrible, potential bioterrorist weapons that are out there, that well also discuss
later on as well. We have to protect ourselves and be prepared for, in case they are
ever released into the environments by bioterrorists. So you figure thats one of the
safest places in the world. The CDC in Atlanta, Georgia to work with these things
and learn as much as we can about them. And prepare vaccines and learn how to
get better antibiotics to treat these infections and do other kind of work. But
something really funny happened down there. Anybody read that in the paper
lately? Paper lately? No? The funny thing was, believe it or not, there was one of the
agents we suspect bioterrorists might use if they ever decide to come back again.
How like that after 9-11 is anthrax. The anthrax bacteria. And so they worked with
anthrax bacteria down in the CDC under the most careful conditions you can
imagine in the world. There are bio-safety 1, 2, 3, 4 levels of work. This is they
worked with these bacteria in the highest, most secure levels of safety. So the
people, they wore these uniforms that went through one chamber after another. So
that these agents cant get outside and infect people. Well guess what? They did!
Anthrax spores, bacteria got out of the area where they were working on them. And
I guess what happened was that they thought that these bacteria were dead, so they
took samples out of the area. They were working and brought them to areas that
were not quite as secure, not quite as safe and about 30 lab workers were exposed
to viable anthrax bacteria. And at the CDC, just almost unimaginable that thats the
fact that happened within such a controlled environments, but to do the work there
and other places, to learn about these potential agents of bioterrorism. Anthrax,
small pox, and some others well discuss later. Immerging infections, since I have
been teaching this course well over- a lot of years. I can think of probably about 30
infections we talked about today that we didnt talk about at all when I started
teaching microbiology here years ago. Think of AIDS, Legionnaires Disease, SARS,
and so many others. So over the years, Ive had to eliminate some of the bacteria we
talked about before my time in the curriculum to discuss these new infections that
are prevalent. And so these are immerging infections that seem to come out of
nowhere. Theyre probably always around in the animal population, but as we
encroach upon their territory and come in contact with the animals, most of these
new infections that emerge in us, in humans come from animals and interactions
with them. Not all of them, but most of them do. So emerging new infections we
hadnt heard about say 30 years ago. And new vaccines well discuss also. Vaccines,
the most wonderful discovery of all time, I think, because they protect humans from
getting infections. Its better to protect people from getting infections than it is
Transcribed by Kevin Lin Lecture Date: Tuesday, July 1, 2014

10
having to treat them after they get the infections. So many vaccines we have all
been given and our children are given. Like against polio, diphtheria, whooping
cough, etc., have protected thousands if not millions of children from infections and
probably a death as well. Well talk about them. And so many other reasons I think
are interesting to study the world of microbiology today.

[10]- [Bacterial Cytology]
[Dr. Boylan] Lets take a look first at bacteria.

[11]- [Comparison of a prokaryote and a eukaryote]
[Dr. Boylan] The bacterial cell. Bacterial morphology. And this is sort of just an
overall scheme of things to show you a couple- to point out some of the matter we
will discuss today. Comparison of a prokaryote and a eukaryote. First of all,
bacteria are known, are cells. Theyre living cells of course, just like our cells are
alive. But theyre called pro- prokaryotes. Prokaryotes Our cells are shown here
on the bottom. You see how much more complicated they are than the top, so are
eukaryotes. Eu-. The big difference- there arent a lot of a differences between the
two, but the one, big major difference between prokaryotes and eukaryotes is that
prokaryotes do not have a nucleus. No nucleus. There are other things that dont
have either, but thats the essential distinguishing feature between prokaryotes and
eukaryotes. So pro- means actually before prokaryote, before having a nucleus.
Whereas, we are eukaryotes, eu-, we have a true karyote, or a true nucleus thats
shown here. A nucleus. Bacteria do not. Now bacteria to indeed have DNA as
shown here in the scheme, but they dont have a membrane around their DNA.
Thats the key. No nucleus because why? Because they have no nuclear membrane.
So bacteria, prokaryotes have no nuclear membrane, therefore they have no true
nucleus. No true nucleus. The chromosome itself as shown here can be referred to
as a nucleoid. Nucleoid means like a nucleus, but its not. We may see the word
suffix -oid and that is like something else. So nucleoid is chromosome of bacteria
thats like a nucleus, but its not really because it has no nuclear membrane. Has a
chromosome, prokaryote does. So lets look at this bacterial cell first. Chromosome,
singular, supercoiled, circular chromosome. So its a big round circle, but its coiled
like a coil, you know, a rubber band twisted over and over and over again. This
helps the chromosome fit into the bacterial cell. The chromosome itself, although
its circular, if you could cut and stretch it out, it would be about a thousand times
longer than the bacterial cell itself. So you can see the chromosome has to be tightly
coiled to fit into the bacterial cell. And its often called supercoiling, super-coiled
chromosome. But its only one chromosome per bacterial cell. Of course bacteria
have cell membrane. Youve all had cytology last year, so you all know about cells
and the cell membrane. Well, same type of cell membrane is found in bacteria.
Some minor differences with the- but basically the structure of the cell membrane in
bacteria is the same as that of eukaryotes. But well say that and also in the cell
membrane of bacteria, there are a lot more proteins in the cell membrane of a
prokaryote that there are in that of a eukaryote. A lot more proteins, most of them
being enzymes, which are of course proteins. Because all the lack of intracellular
components in bacteria, in prokaryotes, a lot more functions are carried out as a
Transcribed by Kevin Lin Lecture Date: Tuesday, July 1, 2014

11
results of enzymes located in the cell membrane. So rather than I think in our cells,
its maybe 50:50 lipid:protein. In bacteria its about 75% of the cell membrane is
made up of protein because of all the functions these proteins as we will see carry
out to help the bacteria grow and divide. Cell wall is found in bacteria. Is not very
well shown here to differentiate from the membrane, but well spend a lot time in
composition of the cell wall in bacteria because this is a compound that is unique
feature to bacteria. This type of cell wall they have. In addition to chromosome, of
course made up of DNA, circular, closed circles, supercoiled. There is another type
of DNA found in bacteria. From looking at that slide, anybody know what the other
type of DNA is? Right, the plasmid. The plasmid shown here. Plasmids as you can
see here, are much smaller than chromosomes. They are made up of DNA, not RNA.
DNA only. Plasmids are maybe one to two percent the size of the chromosome. But
they are DNA, which means most importantly, DNA, they have genes. They have
genes. Plasmids are often called extra-chromosomal DNA. Extra-chromosomal
because theyre DNA, but theyre not a part of the chromosome. So theyre extra-
chromosomal DNA, have genes. Now these bacteria shown here, some has a
plasmid. You get rid of that plasmid completely, it doesnt need the plasmid to grow
and live. Its dispensable. You dont need it, but many bacteria do have these
plasmids. And if you do have plasmids, the bacteria do have plasmids, what does
that mean? It means that they have some extra genes. A few extra genes. Maybe 5,
10? A few. But thats 5 or 10 more than if they only had the chromosome. And
sometimes these genes or plasmids, well see play very, very important roles in the
pathogenicity of bacteria, ability to cause disease, and also in the resistance of
bacteria to antibiotics. Resistance to antibiotics, like penicillin. Another antibiotics-
because the genes in our body that help the bacteria resistant to treatment by these
antibiotics. Some other components well talk about in more detail coming up. We
see pili. Pili are these small projections that come from the surface of bacteria and
they are made of protein and they help bacteria adhere. Not only to each other but
also to us, the human host. I would say without-. Any infectious agent, in order for,
whether it be bacteria or viruses, etc., to cause infections in humans, they have to
adhere to some tissue in our body. They have to stick. And if they dont stick,
theyre gonna just- we inhale them, we eat them, we drink them. Theyre gonna pass
right on through out body. But sooner or later, these bacteria and other microbes
that cause infections in humans have to stick to some tissue that they like, that they
can adhere to. And very often bacteria, it is the pili that help them adhere. Sort of
grab on as theyre passing through our tissue. Grab on to a cell, and the lung, or the
liver, the intestine. Grab on and hold on and begin to grow there. There are other
components of bacteria that also help them adhere, but thats the main functions of
pili, adherence to ourselves. Cytoplasm has-. The pili are called what we call
appendages. Other bacterial appendage is the flagellum, well talk about that later
also. And rather than being involved in adherence, the flagellum is involved in
motility. Helps the bacteria swim around in the environment, which its found.
Move around and that often also helps the bacteria move to a site that they like to
stick to or adhere to or cause infections. So flagella, well see how they work, to help
the bacteria move around. And of course the bacteria also have ribosomes because
as the cell,, they have to synthesize proteins and ribosomes are found in bacteria.
Transcribed by Kevin Lin Lecture Date: Tuesday, July 1, 2014

12
Same function as found in eukaryotes in our cells. But slight differences in the
properties of the ribosomes between bacteria and our eukaryotic cells that we will
discuss. Slight differences in their makeup, but also fundamentally important
differences, even though theyre slight, and well point out that is the case. And then
we have uhh. Okay. And actually rapidly growing bacteria can have thousands of
ribosomes. 15,000 ribosomes. Well sit there and run bacteria-. Some bacteria can
grow and divide from one cell into two, in 20 minutes! So one cell theyre 20
minutes, you can say that cell is gone, it divides and grows, divides and you have two
daughter cells. And 20 minutes after that you have 4 more cells. So you can imagine
how rapidly the protein synthesis is going on inside these rapidly growing cells and
they propagate their proteins and their DNA and their RNA and cell wall and
membranes. So it calls for a lot of work, a lot of protein synthesis carried out by
thousands of ribosomes that can be found within the cytoplasm of the prokaryotic
cell. Lets take a look at eukaryote mainly to point out what we have in our cells that
bacteria do not have in their cells. And first of all is mitochondrion. The cyto-
cellular respiration. As we recall from your classes last year, the mitochondria
respiration- this is where we get our ATP, our energy. Remember the glycolysis, the
electron transport chain. ATP is being formed through a [inaudible], so ATP occur in
mitochondria. But bacteria dont have mitochondria. Now bacteria do energy, they
need ATP. So they dont have mitochondria, how do bacteria synthesize their ATP.
Well tell you about that in the next hour. Lysosomes that are involved in-. If you
had some lectures in immunology, youll talk about what lysosomes do and how
they destroy bacteria that infect cells. Theyre not found in bacteria. ER is not found
in bacteria. No Golgi apparatus. So in other words, bacteria are much simpler cells,
prokaryotes are much simpler cells than our cells. But well have to carry out the
same important functions to live, grow, divide, replicate.

Alright lets take about a 7 minute break and well move on to the next series of
slides.

You might also like