The strange, beautiful and powerful world of microbes

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The strange, beautiful and powerful world of
microbes
RAVINDER NAGPAL1, A.K. PUNIYA1, M. PUNIYA2, ARTI
BHARDWAJ3, KISHAN SINGH1 AND HARIOM YADAV4 1Dairy
Microbiology, 2Dairy Cattle Nutrition, 4Animal
Biochemistry, National Dairy Research Institute,
Karnal 132001, (Haryana) 3CAEHS, Meerut (UP),
India.
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The first MICROBIOLOGIST and his MICROSCOPE
Anton van Leeuwenhoek - A classical example of
serendipity. By wanting better magnifying lens
with which to judge the quality of the cloth he
was buying Leeuwenhoek discovered bacteria
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What Microbiologists Do ???

• Work in almost every industry - from food,
  agriculture and pollution control to
  biotechnology, pharmaceuticals and health,
  government agencies and labs, in education as
  teachers and researchers.
• No one microbiologist can study everything!
  That's why people who become microbiologists
  usually focus on a particular microbe or research
  area. 
• Bacteriologists focus on bacteria.
• Virologists specialize in viruses.
• Mycologists study fungi.
• Epidemiologists track down outbreaks of disease
• Immunologists study how the body defends itself
  against microbial invaders?

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• What is a microorganism?
• An organism that is too small to be seen clearly
  with the naked eye.
• Generally single cells, but some exist as cell
  clusters often work as a community
• Where do microbes fit in the biological world?

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Microbila cell Efficiency in deficiency
Most of the vital organs of eukaryotes are
missing
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The power of microbe lies in its speedy growth
Imagine the weight of biomass of E.coli after 24
hrs under optimal growth?
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Never underestimate the power of a Microorganism.

• Microorganisms, just like God cannot be seen
  through naked eye but we can feel their impact on
  us in various ways.
• Though only 3 of the total microbial population
  are harmful to the humans.
• Without knowing, we are getting their help from
  the historic days eg. souring of milk (dahi),
  pickels, jams, dosa and idly making, wine
  production etc.
• Microbes are always at Work
• Mind it

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contd

• The pressure inside a bacterial cell is about 2
  atmospheres, which is roughly the same as the
  pressure in a car's tyre.
• A human can be killed by exposure to less than
  500 rad radiation. However, Deinococcus
  radiodurans is a bacterium, which can survive
  exposure to upto 3000000 rad of ionizing
  radiation.
• 'Botulin, a toxin produced by Clostridium
  botulinum, is highly toxic and if everyone has to
  be killed on this earth, less than 1kg of this
  toxin will do.

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Bacterium as big as the head of a fruitfly and
can even "hold its breath"?

• A giant bacterium, Thiomargarita "sulfur pearl of
  Namibia,.
• The bacteria (3/4 mm wide) about 100 times larger
  than the largest known, Epulopiscum fishelsoni. 
• Thiomargarita namibiensis  lives on the nitrogen
  and sulfide on the ocean floor produced by
  rotting plankton and algae.
• Nitrate however is not steadily available, so
  they "hold their breath" while they wait for
  something to stir up off the ocean floor.
• They do this by storing sulfur just under their
  cell wall, and keeping nitrate in a big sac. This
  could be one of the reasons why the bacterium is
  so big.

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A Humongous Fungus

• Did you ever wonder what the world's largest
  organism is?
• Maybe you'd pick an elephant or a giant whale.
• Well, those choices would be wrong this organism
  is actually a soil Fungus, Armillaria bulbosa,
  found in a northern Michigan hardwood forest.
• It is most likely one of the world's oldest
  organisms as well, exceeding 1,500 years and
  weighing over 100 tons.
• It is actually a plant pathogen, whose hyphae
  pierce the roots of aspen trees and absorb
  nutrients from them. Therefore, the majority of
  the fungus is underground and only tiny edible
  honey mushrooms.

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Facts About Microbes

• Microbes outnumber all other species and make up
  most living matter (60 of the earths biomass).
• Less than 0.5 of the estimated 2 to 3 billion
  microbial species have been identified.
• Microbial cycling of critical chemical elements
  such as carbon and nitrogen helps keep the world
  inhabitable for all life forms.

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Contd

• Microbes generate at least half the oxygen we
  breathe.
• Microbes are roots of life's family tree. An
  understanding of their genomes will help us
  understand how more complex genomes developed.
• Microbial genomes are modest in size and
  relatively easy to study (usually no more than 10
  million DNA bases, compared with some 3 billion
  in the human and mouse genomes).
• Microbial communities are excellent models for
  understanding biological interactions and
  evolution.

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Strange Facts and Bacterial Records!!!

• (Omnipresent).
• Everything is everywhere, the environment selects
  - Beijerinck M.W.
• Microbes thrive in an amazing diversity of
  habitats in extremes of heat, cold, radiation,
  pressure, salinity, acidity, and darkness, and
  often where no other life forms could exist.

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Contd

• Underground Chemolithotrophs found in Basalt
  deposits 1500m (4700 ft) underground in solid
  rock.
• The Sky Some bacteria spend their whole lives in
  the atmosphere, growing and reproducing in the
  clouds above our heads.
• On Ice Some bacterial species live in the ice of
  glaciers and others have often found in the snows
  of the North and South poles at -17 and -85C.

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Contd

• Not So Cool Some bacteria have learned to live
  in hot springs. Some species are happy at 75C
  while others think even this is cool. Species of
  Aquifex can live in water as hot as 95C. Archaea
  are happy to grow deep sea hydrothermal vents at
  106C
• The Deep Sea Bacteria known as Extreme
  Barophiles live at depths of gt10000 m and are
  able to survive pressures in excess of 1000 times
  the air pressure at sea level and they cannot
  function properly at pressures less than 400
  atmospheres and may die in a couple of hours if
  brought to the surface.

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Life in the extremes
Sahara desert
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Life in the extremes
Yellowstone National park
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Life in the extremes
Lake Magadi, Tansania
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Life in the extremes
Yellowstone National Park
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Life in the extremes
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Life in the extremes
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Contd

• Fast Movers Some bacteria can move by flagella
  that enable them to obtain speeds as high as
  0.00017 km/ hr. This may not seem very fast, but
  remember that we are talking about very small
  organisms. They are travelling at about 50-60
  body lengths/ sec which is equivalent to a 6 ft
  tall man running at 100 m/ sec, 9 times faster
  than the world record. Cheetahs, are the fastest
  animals on land but even they only move at about
  25 body lengths/ sec.
• What is soil, becomes grass, becomes a cow,
  becomes you and me and then becomes soil again.
  Without microbes, the whole ecosystem would
  collapse

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Facts About Beneficial Bacteria

• The opposite of antibiotics are probiotics - a
  term coined in 1965 to describe substances that
  favor the growth of beneficial microorganisms in
  the body.
• Two species of probiotics, Bifidobacterium and
  Lactobacillus, have been studied the most.
• Bacteria that produce the enzyme lactase help
  reduce lactose intolerance.
• Tell me what you eat,
• and I will tell you what you are - Brillat-Savarin

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Learn a lot from a microbe

• Halobacterium, may hold the key to protect
  astronauts from one of the greatest threats they
  would face during a mission to Mars space
  radiation.
• The harsh radiation of interplanetary space can
  penetrate astronauts' bodies, damaging the DNA in
  their cells, which can cause cancer and other
  illnesses.
• Halobacterium appears to be a master of the
  complex art of DNA repair. This mastery is what
  scientists want to learn from.

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Serratia has a religious history and can cause
severe infections in humans?

• Serratia marcescens, when grown in colonies,
  produces a bright red pigment similar to the
  appearance of blood. 
• In mediaeval churches priests would discover that
  bread left in moist places would "miraculously"
  produce this "blood", thus leading to the belief
  that the bread's red appearance was because it
  had been stabbed by unbelieving Jews. 
• In 1819 Bartolemeo Bizio, a pharmacist,
  discovered that the red pigment occurred because
  of bacteria.

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Martian microbes may exist ?

• Life On Mars??? No one knows for sure yet!
• But in August 1996, scientists announced that
  they had extracted what they believed to be
  fossils of an unknown bacillus shaped
  microorganism from inside a meteorite from Mars
  found in Antarctica..
• The meteorite left Mars 16 million years ago and
  landed in Antarctica 13 thousand years ago. 
• This may support the theory that life did or does
  still exist on Mars!
• Wow! Life on the Red Planet!
• We are not alone! Or are we?

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Shergotty, Bihar, India (1865)
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Mars - Climate and Life
Postulated Mars-Biosphere
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Mars-Climate and Life
Liquid water only in deep subsurface regions
Life either extinct or in subsurface niches
Mars from Pathfinder
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Life on Europa? Moon of Jupiter
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Antarctica, 1984
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Bacteria sometimes catch A Virus
Bacteriophages bacteria-eaters,
viruses that use bacteria to
multiply In the 1990s, bacteriophage research
became an alternative for scientists worried
about antibiotic resistance. Researchers in
America followed the example of scientists in
Western Europe who were treating patients with
bacteriophages and obtaining great results. When
antibiotics don't work for a bacterial infection,
doctors can use bacteriophages to kill the
bacteria. Although ironic, a virus can make us
feel better!
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Microbes enables cows to eat grass?

• Microbes living in the rumen of the cow are
  responsible for the breakdown of the carbohydrate
  cellulose of plants. 
• The cow lacks the enzymes to break down
  carbohydrates. 
• Without microbes and their enzymes, ruminants
  would not be able to derive
  any energy or nutrients
  from a diet of grass. 

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Microbes have a built-in compass?

• Aquatic, anaerobic bacteria called magnetotactic
  bacteria find their way around by using the
  attraction from the earth's magnetic field. 
• When placed near a magnet, they are attracted to
  the magnet's northern pole because the bacteria
  make magnetic particles which contain iron.
• When lined-up, the particles make a long magnet
  that is used by the bacteria as a compass. 
• It is this built-in compass that enables the
  bacteria to find its way down to the deep,
  oxygen-free parts of its aquatic habitat.

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Diamonds are made from dead bacteria???

• Carbon, the main component of most diamonds,
  usually contains an isotope of light carbon
  (12C), which is utilized by some living
  organisms. 
• Therefore, eclogitic diamonds with large amounts
  of the isotope 12C, are believed to have an
  organic origin. 
• These were formed from carbon near hydrothermal
  vents which was also utilized by the bacterial
  communities near the vents. 
• Thus through time, heat and pressure were able to
  turn the carbon along with the bacterial colonies
  into diamonds.
• "So, those sparklers of yours may just be clumps
• of billion-year-old bacterial corpses"

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Microbial Jugnu Bacteria that emit visible
light?

• Lightning bugs make light, but interestingly
  enough, bacteria produce light in basically the
  same process called bioluminescence.
• Luciferase - uses molecular oxygen and a
  protein that has a particular vitamin FMNH2
  attached to it. 
• Luciferase - causes oxidation reaction to occur
  between oxygen and vitamin leading to the
  conversion from FMNH2 to FMN. 
• As this occurs, luciferin emits visible light! 
• The color of light (orange, yellow, yellow-green,
  or blue-green ) depends on the kind of luciferase
  and amount of oxidation of the vitamin attached
  to the luciferin. 

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Enzymes that bacteria use to break down dead,
chilled whales may be used in cold-water
detergents?

• The cold temperature slows the rate of biological
  decay and in a whale, the oil-laden bones are the
  last things to be decomposed by bacteria at depth
  of 3300 feet. 
• The detergent industry's current fat-digesting
  enzymes are only effective in warm water, 105ºF. 
  
• Therefore, in cold water the enzymes do not gulp
  up oil or grease.  Hence, a tremendous amount of
  energy savings could be obtained when using a
  cold-water enzyme that worked on stains. 

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Microbes can degrade explosives?

• Trinitrotoluene, TNT, is a problematic explosive
  that contaminates the soil in areas where
  ammunition is kept. 
• Bacteria named Clostridium bifermentans is able
  to break down this contaminant. 
• When provided with starch as energy source, the
  bacteria can break down the TNT through
  co-metabolism by broken-down TNT as a source of
  carbon.

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Bacteria can help clean up oil spills?

• After the Exxon Valdez crashed off the shore of
  Alaska, spilling its contents all over the area,
  one of the biggest contributors to cleaning up
  the environment was Pseudomonas. 
• Scientists found that by feeding the contaminated
  area with oxygen and waste water, the bacteria
  present there were provided with the nutrients
  needed to flourish, thereby encouraging the break
  down of hydrocarbons within crude oil by
  Pseudomonas.
• The hydrocarbon that the bacterium feasts on are
  converted to carbon dioxide and water. 

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Microbes might be used to breakdown dirty laundry
on long space flights?

• One of the problems that would be encountered,
  which is now one of the problems with the Russian
  space station Mir, is the disposal of dirty
  laundry. 
• Presently, there are only two supply trips a year
  to Mir, so six months of stockpiling doesn't work
  too well. 
• Russian scientists are working on developing a
  mixture of bacteria that could be used to
  biodegrade dirty underwear.

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Bacteria keep vegetables fresher?

• Even vegetables that are kept in airtight
  containers are prone to spoilage by E.coli and
  Listeria. 
• Lactic acid bacteria, are an alternative solution
  to this problem by producing natural acids that
  prevent Listeria from growing in foods.

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Bacteria are used to make chocolate?

• Chocolate comes from the seeds of the Cacao
  tree. 
• The seeds come in pods and the only way to
  retrieve the seeds are to ferment them with
  yeasts and lactobacilli and Acetobacter. 
• The Lactobacillus secretes an acid to help break
  apart the pod.

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Microbes can make plastics ?

• Alcaligenes eutrophus, is a useful bacterium
  having the capability of making plastics. 
• The bacterium is able to accomplish this feat
  because it has granules that are made of a
  fat-like polymer and not starch, like the
  granules of other bacteria. 
• These plastics can be readily degraded and
  hopefully will pose less environmental threat. 
• There are strong hopes of using these bacteria
  and their plastics for medical purposes.

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Microbes are all over your skin?

• While bacteria are found on your fingers, toes,
  arms and legs they are far more numerous on your
  face.
• They are found above and below the surface of
  your skin and are in no way harmful.  
• However, all teenagers have had at least one zit
  in their lifetime, are called pimples,
  blackheads, whiteheads, blemishes, acne, etc.
• And while bacteria are not the cause for zits
  they do inhabit those little imperfections.  So,
  the next time you pop your pimple you must know
  that you are unleashing an army of microbes.

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Microbes cause body odor? 

• The sweat that comes out of your underarms
  actually does not smell bad. 
• The reason that people give off odors when they
  sweat in their underarms is that bacteria living
  there like to eat sweat, and as a result produce
  waste products that cause it to smell. 
• Body odor can be eliminated by using deoderant. 
• Deoderant kills the bacteria under your arms so
  that it cannot make your sweat stink. 
• So don't forget your deoderant it does more
  than just mask body odor, it stops it before it
  happens!

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Sick Building Syndrome?

• Fumes from certain construction materials in
  buildings e.g. malls, are responsible for giving
  people severe headaches. 
• Microbes living in potted plants eliminate Sick
  Building Syndrome by degrading the fumes.
• However, suffering people may be glad to know
  that helpful bacteria can solve their problem.

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Mycobacterium tuberculosis is the literary
microbe? 

• Famous writers like Keats, Browning, Austen and
  Orwell have all suffered from tuberculosis and
  because of this the microbe has been called the
  literary microbe. 
• Tuberculosis is also considered to be the
  greatest killer of all times. About one hundred
  thousand million people have been affected. This
  bacterium is transmitted through air or infected
  milk.

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Microbes form fossils?

• In 1950's-1960's, micropaleontologists discovered
  layers of sedimentary rocks, wavelike
  stromatolites in Great Lakes, are believed to
  contain microbial fossils. 
• Some fossils are 3.5 billion years old, meaning
  that they were formed only one billion years
  after the creation of the Earth indicating that
  microbes are the earliest forms of life on Earth.

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There's a "Sleeping Beauty" story for bacteria?

• In May 1995, scientists were the prince as they
  revived 25-40 million year-old bacteria from the
  stomach of a bee that was preserved in tree sap. 
  
• It was this event that led to the notion of
  Spielberg's Jurassic Park, where dinosaurs were
  created after their DNA was extracted from
  mosquitoes trapped in tree sap the same way. 
• The dinosaurs, however, were the ones who took
  the limelight away from the bacteria on the movie
  screens

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How Does Salmonella Get Inside Chicken Eggs?

• The bacterium actually lives in the feces of
  chicken.
• Because chickens sit on their eggs, even before
  they are collected for consumer purchases, the
  eggs may be subjected to the bacterium.
• It was found that S. enteritidis could actually
  penetrate the hard outer shell of the egg and
  live inside the yolk, where it can reproduce.
• The bacterium could infect hens' ovaries, and
  contaminate the egg before it even developed a
  shell.

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Infected rats make easy cat snacks

• Toxoplasma gondii, a parasitic infection in rats,
  alters their natural behaviour and makes them
  easy prey for cats.
• Toxoplasma gondii is found in about 35 of rats
  but prefers to live in cats.
• It ensures its return to its favourite host by
  affecting the brains of the normally cautious
  rats, making them outgoing and active and an easy
  meal for a hungry cat.
• Rats can usually detect subtle changes in their
  environment. It makes them very hard to trap or
  poison but this parasite overrides the innate
  response - they almost taunt the cats in a sense
  (remember Tom n Jerry ???).

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Caught Dirty-Handed!!!

• When was the last time you washed your hands?
• Did you use soap?
• What have you done since you washed?
• Have you eaten, put your fingers in your mouth or
  touched someone else?
• There are millions of microbes on your hands.
  Most are naturally occurring and harmless. But
  some may be disease-causing germs. Hand washing
  with soap lifts off those microbes and rinses
  them away.
• Observations in public restrooms reveals what?????

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Bacteria can help give your jeans the right fade

• Alkalothermophilic Thermomonospora produces
  enzyme cellulase, which when mixed with a coarse
  denim cloth reduces its hairiness and makes it
  softer and lighter.
• It gives same appearance as a stone wash, causes
  no damage to drums of washing machines by
  preventing wear and tear of the material.
• Finish can be controlled to desired level by
  controlling the amount of enzyme.

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Bacteria can act as insecticides? 

• The first major products of agricultural
  biotechnology was Bacillus thuringiensis,
  producing proteins that are toxic to many
  insects.
• Now, scientists have spliced genes of it into
  crops, that produces toxins fatal to crop
  damaging pests, but harmless to "good" bugs.

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Thanks for your kind attention