Microbiology As A Science

Burton's Microbiology
for the Health Sciences
Section I.
Introduction to Microbiology
Copyright © 2011 Wolters Kluwer Health | Lippincott Williams & Wilkins

Burton's Microbiology
for the Health Sciences
Chapter 1. Microbiology - The Science

Chapter 1 Outline
• Introduction
• What is microbiology?
• Why study microbiology?
• First microorganisms on Earth
• Earliest known infectious diseases
• Pioneers in the science of microbiology
• Careers in microbiology

What is Microbiology?
• Biology is the study of living organisms
• Microbiology is an advanced biology course
• Microbiology is the study of microbes, which are extremely
small (microscopic) living organisms and certain non-living
entities
• Living microbes are known as cellular microbes or
microorganisms; examples include bacteria, archaea, some
algae, protozoa, and some fungi
• Non-living microbes are known as acellular microbes or
infectious particles; examples include viroids, prions, and
viruses
• Microorganisms are ubiquitous (they are found virtually
everywhere)
Acellular and Cellular Microbes

Prions
• Abnormal, pathogenic that

are able to induce abnormal
folding of specific normal
cellular proteins called prion
proteins that are found most
abundantly in the brain.
• Prion disease include bovine
spongiform encelopathy
(BSE or “mad cow” disease)
in cattle
Prions
• Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease
(CJD) and variant CJD in
humans.
• Scrapie in sheep, and
chronic wasting disease
(CWD) in deer, elk, moose
and reindeer .
Source: https://www.niaid.nih.gov

Viroids
• These are small plant

pathogens that do not
encode proteins.
• Consists only of a short
strand of circular RNA
capable of self-replication.
• The first viroid discovered
was found to cause potato
tuber spindle disease.
Virusoids
• These are in structure to

viroids, but they codify for
one or more gene products
and they need a helper virus
to be able to infect a cell.
• The best studies virusoid is
the human hepatitis D virus
that use hepatitis B as
helper virus.

Virusoids
• If a host cell contains both

hepatitis D and B viruses,
the virusoid RNA and its
gene product (delta antigen)
become able to infect other
cells and replicate.

• The microbes that cause
disease are sometimes
referred to as “germs”
• The scientific term for
disease-causing microbes is
pathogens
• Microbes that do not cause
disease are called
nonpathogens; the vast
majority of microbes are
nonpathogens

• Microbes that live on and in our bodies are referred to

as our indigenous microflora
• Some members of our indigenous microflora are
opportunistic pathogens
• Opportunistic pathogens are microbes that can cause
disease, but usually do not; they can be thought of as
microbes that are awaiting the opportunity to cause
disease
• Pathogens cause two categories of diseases: infectious
diseases and microbial intoxications

Categories of Diseases Caused by
Pathogens

Microbial Intoxication
• Occurs from eating

a food that contains
a toxin produced by
bacteria.
• An example of food
intoxication is
Clostridium
botulinum poisoning

Microbial Intoxication
• Intoxication occurs when

live bacterial cells are
ingested which then
produce toxins in the body.
• Example:
Food intoxication is Clostridium
perfringens.

WHY STUDY
MICROBIOLOGY?

Why Study Microbiology?
• Microorganisms play significant roles in our lives;
they are essential for life on this planet
• Photosynthetic algae and bacteria (such as
cyanobacteria) produce much of the oxygen in our
atmosphere
• Microorganisms are involved in the decomposition of
dead organisms and waste products
• Saprophytes are organisms that live on dead and/or
decaying organic matter
• The use of microbes to clean up toxic wastes and
other industrial waste products is known as
bioremediation

Bioremediation
• It is the use of microbes to

clean up contaminated soil
and groundwater.
• Microbes are very small
organisms, such as
bacteria, that live naturally in
the environment.

Bioremediation
• Stimulates the growth of

certain microbes that use
contaminants as a source of
food and energy.
• Three types of
Bioremediation:
• Microbial bioremediation
• Phytoremediation
• Mycoremediation
Microbial Bioremediation
• Uses microorganisms to
degrade pollutants either
completely to water and
carbon dioxide (for organic
pollutants) or into less toxic
forms.
• Microbial clean up can be
applied in situ (in place of
contamination) or ex situ (off
site contamination).
Phytoremediation Bioremediation
• Uses plants to bind, extract,

and clean up pollutants such
as pesticides, petroleum
hydrocarbons, metals, and
chlorinated solvents.

Mycoremediation
• It is a form of remediation in
which fungi-based remediation
methods are used to
decontaminate the environment.
• Fungi have been proven to be a
cheap, effective and
environmentally sound way for
removing a wide array of
contaminants from damaged
environments or wastewater.

Microbes as Saprophytes

• Many microbes play essential roles in various
elemental cycles; e.g., the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen,
sulfur, and phosphorous cycles
• Algae and bacteria serve as food for tiny animals; they
are important links in food chains
• Microbes that live in the intestinal tracts of animals aid
in the digestion of food and produce beneficial
substances
• For many years, microorganisms have been used as
“cell models”; the more that scientists learned about
microbial cells, the more they learned about cells in
general
Microbes and Nitrogen Fixation

• Microbes are used in many industries; e.g., food,

beverage, chemical, and antibiotic industries and in
genetic engineering
• In genetic engineering, a gene or genes from one
organism is/are inserted into a bacterial or yeast cell;
the cell that receives the new gene(s) is then capable of
producing the gene product(s) coded for by the new
gene(s)
• The use of living organisms or their derivatives to make
or modify useful products or processes is call
biotechnology

First Microorganisms on Earth
• Fossils of primitive microorganisms date back about 3.5

billion years ago.
• Candidates for the first microorganisms on Earth are
archaea and cyanobacteria.
• Infectious diseases of humans and animals have existed
for as long as humans and animals have inhabited the
planet.
• Earliest known account of pestilence occurred in Egypt in
about 3180 BC.

Pioneers in the Science of Microbiology
Anton van Leeuwenhoek
(1632-1723)
– “Father of Microbiology”
– Not a trained scientist!
– Made many simple

single-lens microscopes
– Observed ”animalcules”
(bacteria and protozoa)

Louis Pasteur (1822-
1895)
– French chemist who made
numerous contributions to
microbiology
– Investigated different
fermentation products
– Developed the
pasteurization process
– Discovered life forms that
could exist without oxygen
(anaerobes)
– Developed several
vaccines, including rabies
and anthrax vaccines

Robert Koch (1843-1910)
– German physician who made
numerous contributions to
microbiology
– Made significant
contributions to the germ
theory of disease
– Discovered that Bacillus
anthracis produced spores
– Developed methods of fixing
and staining bacteria
– Developed methods to
cultivate bacteria

Koch’s Postulates
1. A particular microbe must be found in all cases of the
disease and must not be present in healthy animals or
humans.
2. The microbe must be isolated from the diseased animal
or human and grown in pure culture in the laboratory.
3. The same disease must be produced when microbes
from the pure culture are inoculated into healthy
susceptible laboratory animals.
4. The same microbe must be recovered from the
experimentally infected animals and grown again in pure
culture.

Koch’s Postulates

Koch’s Postulates, cont.
• If an organism fulfills Koch’s postulates, it has been
proven to be the cause of that particular infectious
disease
• Koch’s Postulates helped prove the germ theory of
disease
• Koch gave a tremendous boost to the development of
microbiology by stressing laboratory culture and
identification of microorganisms
• Circumstances do exist in which Koch’s Postulates cannot
be fulfilled

Careers in Microbiology
• A microbiologist is a scientist who studies microbes.
• There are many career fields within the science of
microbiology (e.g., bacteriology, phycology,
protozoology, mycology, parasitology, and virology).
• Medical Microbiology
– Involves the study of pathogens, the disease they
cause and the body’s defenses against disease.
– Concerned with epidemiology, transmission of
pathogens, disease-prevention measures, aseptic
techniques, treatment of infectious diseases,
immunology, and production of vaccines.

KEY POINTS:
• Microbiology is the study of microbes. Individual microbes can

be observed only with the use of various types of
microscopes.
• The two major categories of microbes are acellular microbes
(also called infectious particles) and cellular microbes (also
called microorganisms).
• Acellular microbes include viruses and prions.

KEY POINTS:
• Cellular microbes include all bacteria, all archaea, some

algae, all protozoa, and some fungi.
• Because viruses are acellular (not composed of cells), they
are often referred to as “acellular microbes” or “infectious
particles” rather than microorganisms.
• Microbes are ubiquitous, meaning that they are found virtually
everywhere.

KEY POINTS:
• Only a small percentage of known microbes cause disease.

Those that do are called pathogens.
• Pathogens cause two types of diseases: infectious diseases
and microbial intoxications.
• Microbes that do not cause disease are called nonpathogens.
Opportunistic pathogens do not cause disease under ordinary
conditions but have the potential to cause disease should the
opportunity present itself (e.g., if they gain access to the
“wrong place” at the “wrong time”).
KEY POINTS:
• Many microbes are involved in the decomposition of dead

organisms and the waste products of living organisms.
Collectively, they are referred to as decomposers or
saprophytes. A saprophyte is an organism that lives on dead
and/or decaying organic matter.
• The use of microbes to clean up toxic wastes and other
industrial waste products is known as bioremediation.

KEY POINTS:
• Many microbes play essential roles in various elemental

cycles, such as the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, sulfur, and
phosphorous cycles. Photosynthetic algae and bacteria (such
as cyanobacteria) produce much of the oxygen in our
atmosphere.
• Many microbes are used in various industries, such as food,
beverage, chemical, and antibiotic industries. The use of living
organisms or their derivatives to make or modify useful
products or processes is called biotechnology.

KEY POINTS:
• Three of the early microbiologists who made significant

contributions to our present understanding of microbes were
Anton van Leeuwenhoek, Louis Pasteur, and Robert Koch.
• Robert Koch and his colleagues established an experimental
procedure to prove that a specific microbe is the cause of a
specific infectious disease. This scientific procedure became
known as Koch’s Postulates.

References:
• Engelkirk, P. G. and G. R. W. Burton. 2011. Burton’s Microbiology for the
Health Sciences. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. Baltimore, MD, 398 pp.
• https://www.intechopen.com
• www.Wikipedia.com

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Burton's Microbiology

for the Health Sciences

Copyright © 2011 Wolters Kluwer Health | Lippincott Williams & Wilkins

Copyright © 2011 Wolters Kluwer Health | Lippincott Williams & Wilkins

Copyright © 2011 Wolters Kluwer Health | Lippincott Williams & Wilkins

Copyright © 2011 Wolters Kluwer Health | Lippincott Williams & Wilkins

• Abnormal, pathogenic that

Copyright © 2011 Wolters Kluwer Health | Lippincott Williams & Wilkins

• These are small plant

• These are in structure to

Copyright © 2011 Wolters Kluwer Health | Lippincott Williams & Wilkins

• If a host cell contains both

Copyright © 2011 Wolters Kluwer Health | Lippincott Williams & Wilkins

Copyright © 2011 Wolters Kluwer Health | Lippincott Williams & Wilkins

• Microbes that live on and in our bodies are referred to

Copyright © 2011 Wolters Kluwer Health | Lippincott Williams & Wilkins

Copyright © 2011 Wolters Kluwer Health | Lippincott Williams & Wilkins

• Occurs from eating

Copyright © 2011 Wolters Kluwer Health | Lippincott Williams & Wilkins

• Intoxication occurs when

Copyright © 2011 Wolters Kluwer Health | Lippincott Williams & Wilkins

Copyright © 2011 Wolters Kluwer Health | Lippincott Williams & Wilkins

Copyright © 2011 Wolters Kluwer Health | Lippincott Williams & Wilkins

• It is the use of microbes to

Copyright © 2011 Wolters Kluwer Health | Lippincott Williams & Wilkins

• Stimulates the growth of

• Uses plants to bind, extract,

Copyright © 2011 Wolters Kluwer Health | Lippincott Williams & Wilkins

Copyright © 2011 Wolters Kluwer Health | Lippincott Williams & Wilkins

Copyright © 2011 Wolters Kluwer Health | Lippincott Williams & Wilkins

Copyright © 2011 Wolters Kluwer Health | Lippincott Williams & Wilkins

• Microbes are used in many industries; e.g., food,

Copyright © 2011 Wolters Kluwer Health | Lippincott Williams & Wilkins

• Fossils of primitive microorganisms date back about 3.5

Copyright © 2011 Wolters Kluwer Health | Lippincott Williams & Wilkins

– Not a trained scientist!

– Made many simple

Copyright © 2011 Wolters Kluwer Health | Lippincott Williams & Wilkins

Copyright © 2011 Wolters Kluwer Health | Lippincott Williams & Wilkins

Copyright © 2011 Wolters Kluwer Health | Lippincott Williams & Wilkins

Copyright © 2011 Wolters Kluwer Health | Lippincott Williams & Wilkins

Copyright © 2011 Wolters Kluwer Health | Lippincott Williams & Wilkins

Copyright © 2011 Wolters Kluwer Health | Lippincott Williams & Wilkins

Copyright © 2011 Wolters Kluwer Health | Lippincott Williams & Wilkins

• Microbiology is the study of microbes. Individual microbes can

Copyright © 2011 Wolters Kluwer Health | Lippincott Williams & Wilkins

• Cellular microbes include all bacteria, all archaea, some

Copyright © 2011 Wolters Kluwer Health | Lippincott Williams & Wilkins

• Only a small percentage of known microbes cause disease.

• Many microbes are involved in the decomposition of dead

Copyright © 2011 Wolters Kluwer Health | Lippincott Williams & Wilkins

• Many microbes play essential roles in various elemental

Copyright © 2011 Wolters Kluwer Health | Lippincott Williams & Wilkins

• Three of the early microbiologists who made significant

Copyright © 2011 Wolters Kluwer Health | Lippincott Williams & Wilkins

Copyright © 2011 Wolters Kluwer Health | Lippincott Williams & Wilkins

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