BIOL 3401 General Microbiology Laboratory Fall 2020

Survey of Microorganisms

• Microorganisms are divided into 3 domains based on the comparison of

Ribosomal RNA molecules and Biochemical data. This is
different from the kingdoms that you might have learned in early biology
courses.

o Domain Bacteria
▪ Prokaryotic cell structure
▪ Lack of organelles such as mitochondria and chloroplasts
▪ Lack of organized nucleus and nuclear membrane
▪ 70S ribosomes, susceptible to antibiotics
▪ Cell wall composed of peptidoglycan
▪ Bacteria and cyanobacteria

o Domain Eukarya
▪ Eukaryotic cell structure
▪ Membrane bound organelles
▪ 80S ribosome, not susceptible to antibiotics
▪ Depending on the organism, there might or might not be a cell
wall- plants ( cellulose ), animals, fungi ( chitin ), protozoa,
algae

o Domain Archaea
▪ Lack of organelles such as mitochondria and chloroplasts
▪ Lack of organized nucleus and nuclear membrane
▪ 70S ribosomes, but protein makeup and morphology similar to
eukaryotic ribosomes
▪ Cell wall but not composed of peptidoglycan
▪ Some examples - “extremophiles”

Note- though a microbiology lab involves working with microorganisms from all
three domains, such as fungi, protists, and even member of domain archaea, we will
mainly focus on bacteria. Just wanted you to understand that bacteria are not the
only microorganisms.
BIOL 3401 General Microbiology Laboratory Fall 2020

Ubiquity of Bacteria
Terms to know
Ubiquity/ ubiquitous
Colony
Fomite

• Bacteria are organisms , have a role in any ecosystem.

• A colony is a visible mass of cells usually resulting from the division of a
single cell.
• Media, (singular= 10e9 ), is used to grow microorganism in the lab.
Agar-agar is used as a solidifying agent. (We will look into media in more
detail next week , for now just know that it’s used to grow microorganisms).

• Procedure
o Refer to the material section in the lab manual and watch the short
YouTube video “Ubiquity of Microorganisms procedure” to get an idea
of how this exercise is done. Basically, working as scientifically as
possible, several fomites around the lab are swabbed and exposed to
media to see the presence of microorganisms.

▪ Several things to pay attention to that are part of the

procedures in microbiology lab universally
• How are the plates and tubes labelled?
- Name, section number, and identification of whats on
plate
• How are the plates incubated for 24-48 hours after
being introduced to a microorganism?
- They are place in a bin
• Notice how the lids for a bottle/plate/tube of media
were always held in hands (rather than put on the
counter), why do you think that was?
- This is due to avoid any form of contamination

• For the results, we would have looked at the results 24-48 hours after
incubation. We’ll look at how to tell if there if there is growth on the medium
used next week, for now, I want you to think about two things-

16. Would you except there to be growth on the “cough plate” and/or on the
plate that was swabbed with dust from a dust pan? How about the TSB broth
tube that was exposed to the finger?

Yes, you would expect there to be growth on the “cough plate or the plate that
was swabbed with dust. As well as the TSB broth tube that was exposed to the
finger. If both plates are using agar medium, this will allow the formation o f
bacterial colonies. The same goes for the broth which undergo cell division to
create colonies which causes the broth to become turbid.

17. If your answer to the above questions were yes, is it a bad thing to have
microorganisms in or on these environments?
BIOL 3401 General Microbiology Laboratory Fall 2020

In a controlled environment, then no. This allows the person conducting a

study on the formation of colonies and their identification (edge,
pigmentation, texture.)