Friday, 26th September 2014, 6th Microbiology Class "Fun!"

Unlike the usual 10am until 12pm, today's class was held at 8am until 10am because Dr Wan has to rush to Nilai afterwards because she has got a presentation to do there. Oh! Before I forgot. During the previous class, Dr Wan actually gave us an assignment. Remember the group activity mind map? But instead of in a group, everybody, individually has to submit our own mind map on Topic 3 that we will discuss later in class. But apparently not today because today we were discussing on the external structures of a prokaryote while our individual mind map was on the internal structures of a prokaryote. So! As I was saying.... I'm going to show you my mind map! ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ 

Of course you won't be able to read it. Hehe. Open the image in a new tab ok. (/・・)ノ

THINGS THAT I LEARNED TODAY :

1- Vibrio-shaped bacteria is bacteria that possessed a curved rod shape or a comma shape! 

Vibrio cholerae 

Desulfovibrio

2- The biggest structure in prokaryotes ---->> CELL WALL!! (I guess this is kind of the same with human where the biggest organ of human is their skin, It's their surface area is it?) 

3- Dr Wan asked us what are the the relationships between the size and shape of prokaryote. And we discussed it in class and Dr Wan also gave us the answers afterwards. The relationships are : 

• the bigger the size, the bigger the storage for nutrients uptake of the microorganisms. 
• the smaller the size, the easier the microorganisms can hide from predators/ can be protected. 

4- Thermoplasma, an archaea, can change shape. They show irregular form when placed in water and become sphere-shaped in room temperature. 

Thermoplasma shape when placed in water. 

Thermoplasma sphere-shaped when in room temperature.

5- As we all know, there are two domains of procaryotes which is bacteria and archaea.

6- One of my classmate, Farah Alia was called by Dr Wan today and she was asked to define procaryotes. DEFINE prokaryotes : 

• The domains are bacteria and archaea (like I stated before). 
• They have no membrane bound organelle. 
• Mostly unicellular. 
• Do not have nucleus. 

 7- The basic shapes of a prokaryote is coccus, bacillus and spiral. 

8- 

Five types of arrangement of cocci; from above; diplococci, streptococci, tetrad, sarcinae and staphylococci.

9- Please remember that the liquid part of the cytoplasm is called cytosol. 

10- One of the external structures to the cell wall of a prokaryote is glycocalyx which is a substance that surround cell. It consists of capsule (the more structured and tightly attached to cell wall) and slime layer (less structured and attached loosely to the cell wall) 

The structure of slime layer and capsule in of glycocalyx.

11- A glycocalyx that is made of sugar is called extracellular polymeric substance or extracellular polysaccharide (EPS) which is the main component of biofilm. 

12- There are four different numbers and arrangement of flagella. 

From left to right; monotrichous, lophotrichous, peritrichous, and amphitrichous. 

13- Flagella is made up of the protein named "flagellin". It consists of filament and basal body. 

FUN FACT FOR TODAY! 

(Haha it's a new section huh, maybe I'll make it a permanent section for every entry x'D) 

• Water filter are able to filter microbes that are smaller than 2.5micrometer!
• Phototaxis --> The ability of organisms to move towards a light source. 
• Chemotaxis --> The ability of organisms to move towards a chemical signal. 

End of "Fun Fact For Today!" hehe

14- There are several types of motility for prokaryotes which is "run" or "swim", "tumbles" and "swarm". 

15- "Tumbles" means that the microorganisms runs interrupted by periodic, abrupt, random changes in direction. And following this information, Dr Wan asked us "what is are the interruptions?" where some of us answered rocks and predators hehe but Dr Wan said to try to imagine how small the microbes are to be interrupted by something so big like rocks x'D 

---->> And the answer is --->> Chemicals (substrates/substance surrounding the microbes) 

16- An example of microbe that use "swarm" as their motility is proteus mirabilis which is also known to have cause UTI (Urinary Track Infection) but that is as the secondary result of a long tem catheterization (when a latex, polyurethane, or silicone tube known as a urinary catheter is inserted into a patient's bladder via the urethra) in hospitals or with individuals that have structural abnormalities. 

Proteus mirabillis swarm colony

And we didn't manage to end Topic 3 today because Dr Wan proceeded on doing an activity where everyone must write something on the whiteboard about today's lesson. A mind map of today's lesson! :D It was fun! The boys, especially, wrote so many on the board though! And class ended at 10am and we had a few photoshoot session with Dr Wan today. Hehe.