Questions tagged [bacteriology]

A subdivision of microbiology dedicated to the study of bacteria.

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Is it known how some heat-resistance Bacillus spores repair their DNA after having been heated to 420 °C? (but not much higher)

Background Discussions below several recent posts in Space SE (links below) indicate that bacterial spores are a serious problem when considering how to prevent a future spacecraft mission to ...
uhoh's user avatar
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7 votes
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How dirty are bugs? And is it okay if they touch food?

Sometimes I see people throw out an entire drink or bowl of food because a small bug was in it. Are they justified in doing this? Is there enough bacteria on common species of bugs (like ants, flies, ...
DaneJoe's user avatar
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Bacterial endosymbiosis of bacteria

Endosymbiosis was crucial to the development of complex life and it continues to happen to this day. The origin of mitochondria see bacterial guests in archaea hosts, some of which later took in ...
Kevin Kostlan's user avatar
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Methods for getting clean C. difficile spore preps without spores clumping together

I'm a microbiologist recently who recently started working on an ongoing C. difficile project for the first time. One of the things I need to do is verify the lower detection limit of my qPCR ...
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"Bacteria don't have membrane-bound organelles." Are sulfur bacteria or Cyanobacteria exceptions?

Can bacteria have membrane-bound organelles? I read this many textbooks: Bacteria cells are simple cells that do not contain a nucleus or other membrane-bound organelles. However, they do contain ...
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I found this in my refrigerator water filter. Is it a biofilm? Is it a sign of dangerous bacteria?

When I dispense water form my refrigerator after changing my filter, the following slimy tube like deposits appeared. Does anybody know what this is? Could it be a biofilm growing in the water hose, ...
Jackson's user avatar
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How does Clostridium perfringens cause target hemolysis?

I am studying microbiology as a part of my course and I was studying Clostridium perfringens. While studying its hemolytic characteristics, I came to know that it causes target hemolysis (i.e. zone of ...
ANA negative's user avatar
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How typhoid fever severe case's intestine perforation occur? (non trauma)

In typhoid severe case, intestinal perforation occurs. As stated here [4, 6]. Intestinal perforation is a serious complication of typhoid fever My question here is, how does the bacteria (Salmonella ...
Cerebral cortex 's user avatar
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How can Haemophilus influenzae survive and grow alone in the human body?

Haemophilus influenzae gets its name from the fact, that it requires nutrients from blood in order to grow. More specifically, I see it mentioned that in vitro they often exhibit the pheomenon that ...
Lukeception's user avatar
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What disease does Saccharopolyspora erythraea cause?

For an examination assignment I have to find a disease caused by the bacterial species Saccharopolyspora erythraea, but I have searched the internet and have found no report of patients being infected ...
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Can the human gut work with other type of gut bacteria?

I was wondering if the human body would be capable of functioning with, say, cellulolytic bacteria in their gut (instead of or in addition of their current bacteria), like that of ruminants and if ...
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Can gut flora affect what we can eat and what we cannot?

Back many years ago, I've read a mushroom guidebook, which I don't have anymore. I was unable to find the name of a particular mushroom. The book comprises listing of edible and poisonous mushroom ...
Christmas Snow's user avatar
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Do non-pathogenic organism not have PAMPs? Are there any research paper which proves that a certain microbe is non-pathogenic?

According to this PAMPs are delivered along with additional information that can be used by the host to distinguish pathogenic from nonpathogenic microbes and thereby guide the ensuing innate ...
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Is it inevitable that antibiotics will become useless in the future due to bacteria immunities?

Antibiotics are developed in an ever smaller amount due to the difficulties of discovering new ones. Bacteria, on the other hand, keep "finding" more ways to render antibiotics ineffective, and they ...
user1803551's user avatar
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Is it possible to intentionally limit bacteria's lifespan?

Say I have a species of bacteria. I want this species to only persist for a set number of generations, after which it simply stops reproducing. Is it possible to do this at all (with known genetic ...
Megalonychidae's user avatar
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Can 3% hydrogen peroxide be used as effective disinfectant and antiseptic?

I was curious to see whether 3% hydrogen peroxide can be used as antimicrobial and virucidal product for daily use in home. There are several disinfecting products in the market claim that use of ...
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How do I test if microbes have survived after dehydration?

I have a solution containing various bacteria and fungi. My aim is to place solution on filter paper, and wait until it dries. I then wish to test if the organisms have survived, either on the dried ...
Michael Douglass's user avatar
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Generate T2/T1 Phage Resistant E Coli

I would like to generate T2/T1 phage resistant Stbl3 E Coli to use in virus production. Is there a plasmid somebody has used that confers resistance, or is this done another way?
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Setup of terrarium for an early life experiment

I'm building a terrarium in which an early life environment will be simulated. Over multiple years a few experiments with different starting molecules/atoms will be held in it. The selected materials ...
FoundABoxOnTheSideOfTheStreet's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
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How does Heat Fixing make cells stick to a slide?

Regarding Gram Straining, my college instructor told us how we pass the slide with the bacteria on a bunsen burner 3-4 times and it fixes the bacteria so that they don't get washed away with water. ...
CaramelMonkey16's user avatar
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What is the normal flora in Respiratory Tract (Upper and Lower)?

I opened my notes and it stated : pharynx, trachea, bronchi : << flora normal bronchioli & alveoli : steril which I doubt because many papers I read stated that the lower-respiratory tract ...
Hana Z. Hanifah's user avatar
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How does Propionibacterium acnes survive the antibacterial effects of sebum?

Sebum has antibacterial properties due to sapienic acid and oleic acid according to this article on sebum. According to the same article, desaturation of fatty acids increases acne development. ...
green onion's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
819 views

Is there any alternative to peptone and beef or yeast extract?

I am trying to start a small microbiology project and I need a growth culture for bacteria. I do not want to use the costly nutrient agars you can buy online. I would like to create my own nutrient ...
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Cyanobacteria and the ratio of Iron to Phosphorous

In listening to a recorded lecture that touched on the Great Oxidation Event, a casual remark was made to the effect that the shifting of the Earth's constituents to more availability of phosphorous ...
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Why do some vaccines lose their efficacy with time?

Why do some vaccines lose with time their efficacy? The two obvious examples that I have in mind are influenza and tetanus. The former case is clear, as influenza virus undergoes frequent gene ...
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Interpretation of Pangenome: high number of accessory genes

I performed a pangenomic analysis on a collection of 52 strains belonging to the same genus (some 5-6 different species). All the strains were isolated from the same environment: interior compartment ...
Rob's user avatar
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Home bacteria culture at home?

Can simple bacterial culture be done at home using food agar as the medium (with some additives found in the store)?
user69264's user avatar
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Can a plastic degrading bacteria science fair project be recreated in a school lab?

i am just looking for a science fair project and am fascinated by this topic. i was wondering if a project concerning the isolation of plastic degrading bacteria could be done in a school lab. I am in ...
user46812's user avatar
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What is the difference between enrichment media and selective media?

Enrichment media These media are used to suppress commensal bacteria while allowing the pathogen to remain viable and grow. [Source: Ananthnarayan and Paniker's textbook of Microbiology.] ...
Sikander's user avatar
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Measuring gene similarity in two bacteria models

I'm currently working with some computational models of bacteria. The bacterium I am considering is an Ecoli K-12 which has 139 genes. I have several models of the same bacterium with different ...
SriniShine's user avatar
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236 views

At what g force do bacteria start to pellet down a tube?

I am working with C. elegans and bacteria and I want to get rid of the bacteria they eat by centrifuging the worms without centrifuging the bacteria. I am using a g-force of 600 and the bacteria ...
charlesdarwin's user avatar
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Would the microgravity "shape-shifting" bacteria effect have anything to do with bacteria growing in a host?

Phys.org's news article Why bacteria 'shapeshift' in space describes a recently published study Phenotypic Changes Exhibited by E. coli Cultured in Space, Zea Luis, Z. et al, 2017, Frontiers in ...
uhoh's user avatar
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Advantages and disadvantages of sporulation compared with competence in bacteria?

Why do bacteria have both of these mechanisms to deal with the same environmental stress: nutrient deprivation? In a culture exposed to this condition, often both competent cells and sporulated cells ...
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Why did my isolation streak of an unknown organism on Mannitol Salt Agar turn yellow where there was no growth and magenta where there was growth?

I repeated a culture twice in an entry level microbiology class for our final lab project of culturing a provided unknown organism. One of the required tests on our dichotomous key was to culture a ...
roguetrick's user avatar
2 votes
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49 views

What is R.ornitholytica? Is it a misspelling of R.ornithinolytica or a different species?

I'm trying to find out which of these is correct, or whether they are different organisms: Raoultella ornithinolytica Raoultella ornitholytica I have come across ...
Wodin's user avatar
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2 votes
0 answers
42 views

Why are antibacterial body soaps uncommon?

If body odor is caused by bacteria, and antibacterial soap kills bacteria, why aren't antibacterial body soaps hailed as the holy grail of getting rid of body odor? I can only find hand soap that is ...
vrwim's user avatar
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2 votes
0 answers
474 views

Preserving/disinfecting meat with alcohol?

I'm considering safer ways to handle raw meat and it occurred to me that alcohol might be useful. I'm considering, say, sealing pieces of meat in a container with 40% alcohol or higher in fridge or ...
stackoverflow909's user avatar
2 votes
0 answers
64 views

Oxygen Uptake Rates in Microbial Cultures

Normally if air is sparged into a fermenter, the oxygen uptake rate is roughly equivalent to the oxygen transfer rate: KLa(C* - CL) = Xμ/YX/O2. How would this equation change if the oxygen ...
JFOXX's user avatar
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2 votes
0 answers
103 views

How to keep activated sludge viable for a week?

I am working in biological waste water treatment and I need to collect some activated sludge samples and have them characterized through different methods. The characterization will take from a few ...
Pompilia's user avatar
2 votes
0 answers
32 views

How to track bacteria/ protozoa, unicellular algae in big volumes?

Is there any special cameras and dyes? If I want to track migration/motion of them in 0.1-0.5 cubic metres.
Daniel Bay's user avatar
2 votes
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885 views

Prevent clumping of bacteria in my media so that I can measure turbidity?

Forgive my naivety, I'm an undergraduate Chemical Engineering student doing research this summer into growth rates of various combinations of bacterial isolates. I have about 9 isolates from a toxic ...
Georgeos Hardo's user avatar
2 votes
0 answers
64 views

After a bacterial infection is dealt with, do any of that colony of bacteria remain?

Suppose that I get a bacterial infection, which my immune system deals with. Are there any remnant bacteria, or are they all gone? Now consider the same scenario, but having been treated with a full ...
askvictor's user avatar
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2 votes
0 answers
106 views

Which Lactobacillales (Lactic acid bacteria — LAB) strains are capable of degrading starch?

I've been researching bacteria strains but am having trouble finding amylolytic LAB strains with amylolytic and lactic acid producing character. The only species I've found, that are capable of ...
Wilhelm's user avatar
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How to characterise a protein family in a putative genome island?

We have sequenced the genome of 200 bacterial strains belonging to the same species, a swine bacterial pathogen. In a previous work, it was observed that a protein family of adhesins is present in ...
biotech's user avatar
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Effect of flask position in shaking incubator affects growth kinetics

During some cultivation experiments for my bachelor thesis I noticed that in liquid culture my bacteria (E. coli) grew differently, according to the position in the shaking incubator. Because the ...
KubiBara's user avatar
2 votes
0 answers
116 views

Can two Hfr strains of E. coli conjugate?

Genetics textbooks (and some internet searching) yield abundant examples of Hfr strains conjugating with F- cells, but these sources are surprisingly silent regarding the results of an Hfr ...
Atticus29's user avatar
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2 votes
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271 views

Transportation of bacteria

I would like to take an apparatus containing bacteria to another country (Bolivia) from the U.S.. How do I determine whether I am allowed to do this? The bacteria are: http://www.atcc.org/Products/...
okarin's user avatar
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2 votes
0 answers
525 views

Image Processing Suite for bacterial microscopy: Schnitzcells or MicrobeTracker?

I am looking to start doing some work tracking the size and growth of individual bacterial cells in the microscope. In order to analyze the images I need software that can segment the cells, ...
A. Kennard's user avatar
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2 votes
1 answer
57 views

How to attract Cyanobacteria?

I would like to attract cyanobacteria in one spot on an object (e.g. cloth,) instead of having it swim in the media. my current method is to pour it on the object in a beaker and wait for some of them ...
Anwar Elhadad's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
21 views

Did operon evolve after endosymbiosis and specialisation of mitochondria?

We know that all extant bacteria use the operon system as their mode of regulating gene expression, in contrast to eukaryotes, which use individual gene promoters as well as epigenetic mechanisms, ...
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