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Helpful Bacteria Jessica Harwood Douglas Wilkin, Ph.D. Say Thanks to the Authors Click http://www.ck12.org/saythanks (No sign in required) To access a customizable version of this book, as well as other interactive content, visit www.ck12.org AUTHORS Jessica Harwood Douglas Wilkin, Ph.D. EDITOR Douglas Wilkin, Ph.D. CK-12 Foundation is a non-profit organization with a mission to reduce the cost of textbook materials for the K-12 market both in the U.S. and worldwide. Using an open-source, collaborative, and web-based compilation model, CK-12 pioneers and promotes the creation and distribution of high-quality, adaptive online textbooks that can be mixed, modified and printed (i.e., the FlexBook® textbooks). Copyright © 2015 CK-12 Foundation, www.ck12.org The names “CK-12” and “CK12” and associated logos and the terms “FlexBook®” and “FlexBook Platform®” (collectively “CK-12 Marks”) are trademarks and service marks of CK-12 Foundation and are protected by federal, state, and international laws. Any form of reproduction of this book in any format or medium, in whole or in sections must include the referral attribution link http://www.ck12.org/saythanks (placed in a visible location) in addition to the following terms. Except as otherwise noted, all CK-12 Content (including CK-12 Curriculum Material) is made available to Users in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC 3.0) License (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc/3.0/), as amended and updated by Creative Commons from time to time (the “CC License”), which is incorporated herein by this reference. Complete terms can be found at http://www.ck12.org/about/ terms-of-use. Printed: November 6, 2015 CONTRIBUTORS Doris Kraus, Ph.D. Niamh Gray-Wilson Jean Brainard, Ph.D. Sarah Johnson Jane Willan Corliss Karasov www.ck12.org C HAPTER Chapter 1. Helpful Bacteria 1 Helpful Bacteria • Identify how bacteria are beneficial to humans. • Explain how bacteria are used in food production and medicine. • Summarize the role of bacteria in digestion and as decomposers. Where does cheese come from? Bacteria are often used to make cheese from milk. But making foods is not the only beneficial role of bacteria. For example, they also play an essential role in your gut! Helpful Bacteria Can we survive without bacteria? Could bacteria survive without us? No and yes. No, we could not survive without bacteria. And yes, bacteria could survive without us. Foods Bacteria can be used to make cheese from milk. The bacteria turn the milk sugars into lactic acid. The acid is what causes the milk to curdle to form cheese. Bacteria are also involved in producing other foods. Yogurt is made by using bacteria to ferment milk ( Figure 1.1). Fermenting cabbage with bacteria produces sauerkraut. 1 www.ck12.org FIGURE 1.1 Yogurt is made from milk fermented with bacteria. The bacteria ingest natural milk sugars and release lactic acid as a waste product, which causes proteins in the milk to form into a solid mass, which becomes the yogurt. Medicines In the laboratory, bacteria can be changed to provide us with a variety of useful materials. Bacteria can be used as tiny factories to produce desired chemicals and medicines. For example, insulin, which is necessary to treat people with diabetes, can be produced using bacteria. Through the process of transformation, the human gene for insulin is placed into bacteria. The bacteria then use that gene to make a protein. The protein can be separated from the bacteria and then used to treat patients. The mass production of insulin by bacteria made this medicine much more affordable. During transformation, bacteria can take up any DNA from the environment. Therefore, transformation allows scientists to insert any DNA into a bacteria, potentially producing many different proteins. This makes the bacteria greatly useful to people. Digestion Bacteria also help you digest your food. Several species of bacteria, such as E. coli, are found in your digestive tract. In fact, in your gut, bacteria cells greatly outnumber your own cells! Decomposers Bacteria are important in practically all ecosystems because many bacteria are decomposers. They break down dead materials and waste products and recycle nutrients back into the environment. The recycling of nutrients, such as nitrogen, by bacteria, is essential for living organisms. Organisms cannot produce nutrients, so they must come from other sources. We get nutrients from the food we eat; plants get them from the soil. How do these nutrients get into the soil? One way is from the actions of decomposers. Without decomposers, we would eventually run out of the materials we need to survive. We also depend on bacteria to decompose our wastes in sewage treatment plants. Summary • Bacteria can be used to make foods and medicines. 2 www.ck12.org Chapter 1. Helpful Bacteria • Bacteria play an important role in animal digestion. • Bacteria recycle nutrients in the environment. Explore More Use the resources below to answer the questions that follow. Explore More I • Intestinal Flora: A Virtual Organ at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFwrHoKkZBc (2:15) MEDIA Click image to the left or use the URL below. URL: http://www.ck12.org/flx/render/embeddedobject/57425 1. How does the gut bacteria differ between the small intestine and the large intestine? 2. What can happen if something causes a reduction of "good" bacteria in your gut? 3. How do the number of bacterial cells in your intestines compare to the total number of cells in your body? Explore More II • Gut Microbes in Early Life Have Effect on Adult Emotions at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADhDC MBwMFs (1:15) MEDIA Click image to the left or use the URL below. URL: http://www.ck12.org/flx/render/embeddedobject/57426 1. What is one of the uses of serotonin in the body? 2. What have scientists discovered about the relationship between gut bacteria and serotonin? 3. What do scientists hope to do with this information? Explore More III • Putting Bacteria to Work at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/putting-bacteria-to-work.html 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. How are bacteria used in making foods? What food are made with bacteria? How are bacteria used in oil spills? How are bacteria being used in nanotechnology? How are bacteria used to combat insect pests? How have bacteria been used in medicine? 3 www.ck12.org Review 1. How are bacteria helpful in ecosystems? 2. How are bacteria beneficial to your health? 3. List two foods produced with the help of bacteria. References 1. Mom the Barbarian. Yogurt is made from milk fermented with bacteria . CC BY 2.0 4