What makes the cell wall of bacteria so special?
Provide examples of gram positive and gram negative bacteria
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What feature of gram negative cell wall absent from positive cell wall?
Producing symptoms of disease via endotoxins
What is the composition of the gram negative cell wall?
lipopolysaccharides and peptidoglycan
How does the gram stain differentiate gram positive and gram negative?
Why do we need to differentiate whether the bacteria is gram+/-?
Because they will respond differently to chemotherapeutic antibiotics.
What is the primary stain in gram staining?
Crystal violet, used to identify the type of cell wall of the bacteria which will be determined in the decolorizing step, whereby if it loses the crystal violet complex it means that it its negative and if it doesn’t it is gram positive
What is the decolorizing agent in the gram stain?
Alcohol, particularly ethanol 95%
What is the counter-stain used for in gram staining?
As it is difficult to see colorless cells under the microscope, therefore, a counter-stain, usually safranin or red dye is used to color the bacteria, thereby negative becomes red and positive purple.
What is the cell wall peptidoglycan made up of?
What is the function of the penicillin binding proteins?
Polymerize and modify peptidoglycan, the stress bearing component of the bacterial cell wall, in other words creates the morphology of the peptidoglycan exoskeleton together with cytoskeleton proteins that regulate septum formation and cell shape
What antibiotics target the peptidoglycan?
Beta lactams, including penicillins, cephalosporins, monobactams, penems, carbapenems, beta lactamase inhibitors
What are the classes of antibiotics?
What is the mechanism of action of intracellular antibiotics?
Prevent the formation of the peptidoglycan inside the cell
What is the mechanism of action of glycopeptide antibiotics?
Inhibit synthesis of cell wall peptidoglycan and inhibit bacterial cell membrane permeability
What is the chemical composition of the plasma membrane ?(cytoplasmic membrane)
The cytoplasmic membrane is a semi-permeable membrane, elaborate:
Only low molecular weight materials can penetrate to the inside of the cell, it acts as an effective permeability barrier of the cell regulating the inflow and outflow of metabolites to and from the protoplast
The cytoplasmic membrane contains many proteins and enzymes essential for bacterium survival, provide one example of that:
The proton motive force that generates adenosine triphosphate (ATP) (cellular respiration)
How are bacterial cells similar to mammalian cells?
Embedded in the cytoplasmic membrane, are efflux proteins, what is their function and what types are there? (Vomit pumps)
what types of efflux pumps are there?
1- MATE family (Gram positive)
2- MFS (Gram positive)
3- SMR family (gram positive)
4- RND family (gram negative)
5- ABC super family (gram negative)
Why is it that the more efflux pumps a bacteria has the more beneficial it is for them?
Because the role of the efflux pump is to pump out toxic and unwanted material, thereby ridding itself from damage and thus protecting the cell
How are efflux proteins able to work with various types of substances?
They have loads of substrates that allow them to work with lots of types of chemicals
What is difference between the ribosomes of bacteria and of eukaryotic cells?