Download Concept Questions Read the chapter materials. Take some

Dr. Raj Ramakrishnan, Ph.D.
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Concept Questions
Read the chapter materials. Take some time to write answers to these questions. If you can answer them, you
have a good grasp of the material! Good luck!
Chapter 7
1. Differentiate between micronutrients and macronutrients.
2. Briefly describe the general function of the bioelements CHNOPS in the cell. Define growth factors, and give
examples of them.
Name some functions of metallic ions in cells.
4. Compare autotrophs and heterotrophs with respect to the form of carbon-based nutrients they require.
5. Describe the nutritional strategy of two types of chemoautotrophs (lithotrophs) in the chapter.
6. Fill in the following table:
Source of
Carbon
Usual Source of
Energy
Example
Photoautotroph
Photoheterotroph
Chemoautotroph
Chemoheterotroph
Saprobe
Parasite
7. What is the natural habitat of a facultative parasite? of strict saprobe?
8. Name three groups of obligate intracellular parasites.
9. Classify bacteria with respect to oxygen requirements.
10. What might be the habitat of an aerotolerant anaerobe? Where in the body are anaerobic habitats likely
to be found?
11. Where do superoxide ions and hydrogen peroxide originate?
12. Define symbiosis and differentiate among mutualism, commensalism, synergism, parasitism, and
antagonism, using examples. How are parasitism and antagonism similar and different? Are any of these
relationships obligatory?
13. Explain the relationship between colony counts and colony-forming units. Why can one use the number of
colonies as an index of population size?
14. Why is growth called exponential?
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Dr. Raj Ramakrishnan, Ph.D.
Chapter 8
1. Explain how oxidation of a substrate proceeds without oxygen.
2. Discuss the relationship of (i) anabolism to catabolism; (ii) of ATP to ADP; (iii) of glycolysis to fermentation;
(iv) of electron transport to oxidative phosphorylation
3. What is meant by the concept of the "final electron acceptor"? What are the final electron acceptors in
aerobic, anaerobic, and fermentative metabolism?
4. Name the major ways that substrate-level phosphorylation is different from oxidative phosphorylation.
5. Compare the location of glycolysis, TCA cycle, and electron transport in procaryotic and eucaryotic cells.
6. What is the source of ATP in the TCA cycle?
7. How many ATPs are formed from the original glucose molecule?
8. Summarize the chemiosmotic theory of ATP formation. What is unique about the actions of ATP synthase?
9. How are aerobic and anaerobic respiration different?
10. Briefly outline the use of certain metabolites of glycolysis and TCA in amphibolic pathways.
Chapter 9
1. Compare the genetic material of eucaryotes, bacteria, and viruses in terms of general structure, size, and
mode of replication.
2. Briefly describe how DNA is packaged to fit inside a cell.
3. Give the base sequence of the complementary strand of the following strand of DNA:
5”-ATCGGCTACGTTCAC-3”
4. Explain the following relationship: DNA codes RNA, which makes protein.
5. What message does a gene provide? How is the language of the gene expressed?
6. What about a palindrome makes it recognizable by a restriction endonuclease?
Draw a short sequence of a palindrome.
7. What are the functions of start and nonsense codons?
8. Summarize how bacterial and eucaryotic cells differ in gene structure, transcription, and translation.
Discuss the roles of exons and introns.
9. Compare DNA viruses with RNA viruses in their general methods of nucleic acid synthesis and viral
replication.
10. Compare and contrast the lac operon with a repressible operon system. How is the lac system related to
the feedback control of enzymes mentioned in chapter 8?
11. What is the principle of the Ames test?
10. Describe the principal types of mutations. Give an example of a mutation that is beneficial and one that is
lethal or harmful.
11. Compare conjugation, transformation, and transduction on the basis of general method, nature of donor,
and nature of recipient. List some examples of genes that can be transferred by intermicrobial transfer.
12. What are transposons ?
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Dr. Raj Ramakrishnan, Ph.D.
Chapter 10
1. Define genetic engineering and biotechnology, and summarize the important purposes of these fields.
Review the use of the terms genome, chromosome, gene, DNA, and RNA from chapter 9.
2. Describe the processes involved in denaturing and renaturing of DNA.What is useful about this procedure?
Why is it necessary to denature the DNA in the Southern blot test?How would the Southern blot be used with
PCR?
3. What are restriction length polymorphisms, and how are they used?
4. Explain how electrophoresis works and the general way that DNA is sized. Estimate the size of the DNA
fragment in base pairs in the first lane of the gel in figure 10.4. Define oligonucleotides, explain how they are
formed, and give three uses for them.
5. Briefly describe the functions of DNA synthesizers and sequencers.
6. How would you make a copy of DNA from an mRNA transcript? Show how this process would look, using
base notation. What is this DNA called? Why would it be an advantage to synthesize eucaryotic genes this
way?
7. What characteristics of plasmids and bacteriophages make them good cloning vectors? Name several types
of vectors, and explain what benefits they have. List the types of genes that they can contain.
8. Describe the principles behind recombinant DNA technology. Outline the main steps in cloning a gene.
Once cloned, how can this gene be used? Characterize several ways that recombinant DNA technology can be
used.
9. What characteristics of bacteria make them good cloning hosts? What is one way to determine whether a
bacterial culture has received a recombinant plasmid?
10. What is transfection, and what are transgenic organisms?
11. What is the main difference between ex vivo and in vivo gene therapy? Does the virus vector used in gene
therapy replicate itself in the host cell? Why would this not be a good idea? What are some of the main
problems with gene therapy?
12. Described what a DNA fingerprint is and why and how restriction fragments can be used to form a unique
DNA pattern. Discuss briefly how DNA fingerprinting is being used routinely by biomedicine, the law, the
military, and human biology.
Chapter 11
1. What does a virustatic agent do?
2. Compare sterilization with disinfection and sanitization. Describe the relationship of the concepts of sepsis,
asepsis, and antisepsis.
3. Briefly explain how the type of microorganisms present will influence the effectiveness of exposure to
antimicrobial agents. Explain how the numbers of contaminants can influence the measures used to control
them.
4. Precisely what is microbial death? Why does a population of microbes not die instantaneously when
exposed to an antimicrobial agent?
5. Why are antimicrobial processes inhibited in the presence of extraneous organic matter?
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Dr. Raj Ramakrishnan, Ph.D.
6. Describe four modes of action of antimicrobial agents, and give a specific example of how each works.
7. Summarize the nature, mode of action, and effectiveness of moist and dry heat.Compare their effects on
vegetative cells and spores.
8. How can the temperature of steam be raised above 1000C? Explain the relationship involved.
9. What do you see as a basic flaw in Tyndallization?; In boiling water of devices? ; In incineration
10. What are several microbial targets of pasteurization?
11. Explain why desiccation and cold are not reliable methods of disinfection.
12. What are some advantages of ionizing radiation as a method of control? Some disadvantages?
13. What is the precise mode of action of ultraviolet radiation? What are some disadvantages to its use?
14. What are the superior characteristics of iodophors over free iodine solutions?
15. Name one chemical for which the general rule that a higher concentration is more effective is not true.
What is a sterilant?
16. Name the principal sporicidal chemical agents.
17. Why is hydrogen peroxide solution so effective against anaerobes?
18. Give the uses and disadvantages of the heavy metal chemical agents, glutaraldehyde, and the sterilizing
gases.
19. What does it mean to say that a chemical has an oligodynamic action?
Chapter 12
1. Differentiate between antibiotics and synthetic drugs.
2. Differentiate between narrow-spectrum and broad-spectrum antibiotics. Can you determine why some
drugs have narrower spectra than others? (Hint: Look at their mode of action.) How might one determine
whether a particular antimicrobic is broad or narrow-spectrum?
3. What is the major source of antibiotics? What appears to be the natural function of antibiotics?
4. What drug characteristics will make treatment most effective? What are the major aims of new
antimicrobic drugs?
5. Explain the major modes of action of antimicrobial drugs, and give an example of each. What is competitive
inhibition? What is the basic reason that a metabolic analog molecule can inhibit metabolism? What are the
long-term effects of drugs that block transcription?
6. Why would a drug that blocks translation on the ribosomes of bacteria also affect human cells?
7. Why do drugs that act on bacterial and fungal membranes generally have high toxicity?
8. Explain the phenomenon of drug resistance from the standpoint of microbial genetics (include a description
of R factors). How can one test for drug resistance?
9. Multiple drug resistance is becoming increasingly common in microorganisms. Explain how one bacterium
can acquire resistance to several drugs.
10. Explain four general ways that microbes evade the effects of drugs. What is the effect of beta-lactamase?
11. What causes mutated or plasmid-altered strains of drug-resistant microbes to persist in a population?
12. Summarize the origins and biological actions of interferon.
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Dr. Raj Ramakrishnan, Ph.D.
11. Generally overview the adverse effects of antimicrobic drugs on the host.
12. Describe the stages in a superinfection.
13. Outline the steps in antimicrobic susceptibility testing. Compare the interpretation of the
Kirby-Bauer technique with the MIC technique.
14. What is the therapeutic index, and how is it used?