Transcript Category: most bizarre host

Microbial
Olympics
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Most extreme habitat
Most bizarre host
Most beneficial or detrimental to Earth
Greatest effect on history
Most destructive
Greatest industrial importance
Most fierce pathogen
Fastest; for motility or growth
Weirdest metabolism
Longest survivor
Most bizarre host
•Species name: Histomonas meleagridis.
• This flagellated protozoan lives in the liver of poultry.
This isn't so weird in itself. What is bizarre is the fact that
the amoeba does not produce it's own cysts and as such
cannot transmit to new hosts. Instead, it hitches a ride in
the eggs of another parasitic organism of poultry
Heterakis gallinarum (a nematode) and uses it as a
vector for infection of new hosts. The amoeba enters the
eggs of the nematode and goes along for the ride when
the nematode's eggs spread to new hosts. Now that is
bizarre.
http://ucdnema.ucdavis.edu/imagemap/nemmap/ent156html/nemas/het
erakisgallinarum
Strangest Host
• At the bottom of the ocean on dead whale
carcasses, symbiotic bacteria in Osedax spp.
worms represent an entirely different
evolutionary strategy, they breakdown whalebone lipids (fats and oils) directly to provide
food for the worms. I cant find the name or
much info on this bacteria but still cool.
http://www.mbari.org/news/news_releases/20
04/whalefall.html
Best short-distance travel by
fecal bacteria
• Microbe name: Fecal Bacteria; E.coli & Shigella sp.
• Fecal Bacteria are really well traveled from the toilet.
Studies have been done to show that Fecal bacteria
disperse themselves in an aerosol effect every time you
flush post relief. Thus toilet water with fecal bacteria
sprinkles itself onto everything in your bathroom, yes
including your toothbrush! No other bacteria(s) are
really dispersed this way. Obviously, the idea of toilet
water being unknowingly distributed around the
bathroom is less than appealing, but a study of this sort
calls for looking in detail at precisely what microscopic
organisms we're dealing with here, even if we don't
really want to know.
Fecal contamination of
toothbrushes con’t
• Put rather graphically, it can be summed up as the F3
force: Fecal Fountain Factor, compounded by the
favorable temperatures for bacterial propagation in
room temperature toilet water (3). Using a more
scientific viewpoint, streptococcus, staphylococcus,
E. coli and shigella bacteria, hepatitis A virus and the
common cold virus are all common inhabitants of
public bathrooms, but just because they're all over
the place doesn't mean we necessarily get sick.
Toothbrushes con’t…
• After all, humans carry disease-causing organisms
on our bodies all the times, but with healthy immune
systems, the quantities in which these organisms
exist is not enough to affect us, particularly with a
good hand-washing after every restroom visit.
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Reference: Yahya, M. T., J.M. Cassells, T.M. Straub, and C.P. Gerba. 1992.
Reduction of microbial aerosols by automatic toilet bowl cleaners. J. Environ.
Hlth., 55:32.
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/biology/b103/f02/web2/stan.htmlﾊ
http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2002/05.16/09-overkill.html
Most beneficial to Earth
• Name: Cyanobacteria
• Cyanobacteria are one of the oldest known
fossils and caused the world to have the vital
oxygen that we need to survive. The world
would not be what it partly is today without it,
that may be a good thing for those who need
oxygen and a bad thing for those obligated
anaerobes.
Cyanobacteria producing O2
con’t …
• Cyanobacteria are responsible for
causing evolutionary and ecological
changes in the past with its
endosymbiotic relation in chloroplast of
plants, lichens, and in the fur of sloths.
Cyanobacteria con’t
• To this day Cyanobacteria still affects us with
algal blooms such as red tides neurotoxin
Saxitoxin able to cause a paralysis leading to
respiratory failure in all. Other algal blooms
can result in lake closures, and indicate
excessive nutrient due to pollution such as
farm run-off, improperly treated sewage
waste.Cyanobacteria is part of a great food
chain that almost everything is apart of.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanobacteria
Strange Metabolism
• A new species of bacteria related to the
division Firmicitus rely on radioactive uranium
to convert water molecules to useable energy,
capturing the energy of radiation-borne
hydrogen gas to support microbial
communities that live 2.8 km below the earths
surface. Apparently, Firmicitus is a division of
bacteria found in deep sea vents.
http://www.astrobiology.com/news/viewpr.html
?pid=21112
Most fierce pathogen
• Name: Bdellovibrio spp.
• This is a very fierce pathogen. To who? Other
bacteria! Imagine yourself as an itty bitty
bacteria, just minding your own business.
Suddenly this vibrio bacteria is charging right
for your Gram negative self! Unable to get
away he bores into you, literally ripping
through your cell wall until he is inside. The
invader multiplies and you are slowly but
surely eaten from the inside until your lifeless
body is but the shell of its beauty days.
Very graphic fierce pathogen
con’t
• When all the nutrients have been consumed
by the devil’s young you break open and they
are released into the environment, ready to
kill again. This pathogen is especially fierce
because in order to conquer bacteria it does
not use any special tricks, just 1 flagellum and
a buttload of force as it shoves itself into you!
•
Reference: http://commtechlab.msu.edu/sites/DLC-ME/curious/caOc96LC.html
Longest survivor!
• species name: Bacillus "species 2-9-3”.
• I doubt that you can find a species of anything
that's older than this. 250 million years is
pretty impressive. Unless of course they've
found something else in the last 6
years...Also, they may have actually named it
since these articles were written. I'm
assuming of course that spores count as
continued life. Even if it is a suspended state
thereof.
•
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=231http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/
science/nature/978774.stm
Most extreme habitat
• species name: take your pick. There's lots to
choose from. Let's face it, I could live in a
nice hot bath, full of salts or sugars or
completely lacking them. I could live in the
cold quite happily by just wearing a toque
(welcome to Edmonton). I'm a student so I
live under pressure all the time and I go
anaerobic and hold my breath every time I
get a test back. The one thing I don't think I
could do is go without water. Hence, bacteria
found in the dryest place on earth must count
as living in the most extreme habitat.
•
http://aem.asm.org/cgi/content/abstract/AEM.0130506v1http://aem.asm.org/cgi/reprint/AEM.01305-06v1.pdf
Most Extreme Habitat
• Nomination: Sulfolobus spp. (S. solfataricus, S.
acidocaldarius, S. tokodaii)
• S. solfataricus has been found in different areas
including Yellowstone National Park, Mount St.
Helens, Iceland, Italy, and Russia to name a few.
Sulfolobus is located almost wherever there is
volcanic activity. They strive in environments
where the temperature is about 80oC with a pH
at about 3 and sulfur present.
Sulfolobus con’t
• Another species, S. tokodaii, has been located in
an acidic spa in Beppu Hot Springs, Kyushu,
Japan. Sediments from ~90m below the seafloor
on the Peruvian continental margin are dominated
by inact archaeal teraethers, and a significant
fraction of the community is sedimentary archaea
taxonomically linked to the crenarchaeal
Sulfolobales (Sturt, et al, 2004).
•
Reference: http://microbewiki.kenyon.edu/index.php/Sulfolobus
The bacteria that looks most
like me first thing in the
morning
• species name:
Passeriniella
obiones
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