Chapter 1

Introduction to
Microbiology
and
Parasitology

Dr. Garcia, Caridad D.

College of Nursing Mabini Colleges
Daet, Camarines Norte
4600 PHILIPPINES

profcarrie68@yahoo.com
What is Microbiology?
 Advance BIOLOGY course
 Branch of biology

• Zoology = animals
• Botany = plants
• Entomology = insects
• Microbiology = microorganisms
What is Microbiology?  Advance BIOLOGY course
 Branch of biology
Gk: bios = life
logos = to study/the science of
Micro = small, minute, microscopic

Construct/Give a sentence definition.

Microbiology is the study of small life forms.

Microbiology is the science that deals with
minute life forms.
What is Microbiology? Microbiology is the study of / science that deals with
small life forms.

microorganisms, microbes, germs

Bacteria/bacterium = Bacteriology
Fungi/fungus = Mycology
Branches of
Viruses/virus = Virology Microbiology
Algae/alga = Phycology
Protozoa/protozoan = Protozoology

Parasites = PARASITOLOGY
amoeba, helminths
How SMALL is small?
• Microbiology is the study of / science that
deals with small life forms.

can’t be seen by the naked eye

microscopic

Microscope
How SMALL is small? • Microbiology is the study of / science that
deals with small life forms.
can’t be seen by the naked eye
microscopic

Ave. diameter = 0.2 μm (0.5-1.0 μm )

μm (micromēter) Micrometer (mī·krom’iter)
Instrument to measure small
1 μm = 10 mm
-6
diameters or distances
Ave. length = 2.8 μm
 Scale of Microbes

Don’t worry about

these bacterial
names, just
“microscopes” and
relative sizes.
Scale of Microbes
What is Microbiology? Microbiology is the study of / science that deals with
small life forms.

microorganisms, microbes, germs

NONPATHOGENIC PATHOGENIC
Don’t cause disease disease-causing
microorganisms
3%

Types of microorganism based/according to

their ability to cause disease
 Scope
• Morphology: size, shape, structure, arrangement
• Taxonomy: classification
• Nomenclature: name
• Distribution in nature
• Relationships to each other & with other living
organisms
• Reactions to physical & chemical agents
• Abilities to make physical & chemical changes in
the environment
  “It is generally believed that microorganisms
Microbiology b. >3 billion BC have existed on earth for several billion years,
and over time, plants and animals have evolved
from microorganisms.”

 Above is a fossil cyanobacterium that is 950 million

years old.
 “Microorganisms are… very diverse in all their
aspects: appearance, metabolism, physiology, and
genetics. They are far more diverse [in these terms]
than plants and animals.”
Why Study Microbiology?

Microbes are Essential for

Life on Earth

Have many important and

beneficial biological functions
 Why Study Microbiology?

Plankton –
• Photosynthesis:
microscopic
Algae and some
organisms in the
bacteria capture
energy from ocean.
sunlight and Phytoplankton: tiny
convert it to food, marine plants &
forming the basis of algae.
the food chain.
Zooplankton: tiny
marine animals
 Why Study Microbiology?

Decomposers: break
down dead &
Bioremediation –
decaying matter & the use of
recycle nutrients that
can be used by other microorganisms
organisms. to remove
Saphrophytes –
organisms that live
environmental
on dead or pollutants
decaying organic (industrial wastes,
matter.
oil spills, etc)
 Why Study Microbiology?

Nitrogen Fixation: Some bacteria can

take nitrogen from air and
incorporate it into soil.
Microbial Ecology – study of the
relationships between microbes & the
environment.
• Elemental cycles (C, N, O2, S, P)
 Microbes & Ecology
 SYMBIOSIS: theprovide
Microbes are produces—they living together
energy or
to ecosystems,
ENDOSYMBIONT – the party in a
close associations of two
especially aquatic ecosystems
 symbiotic relationship
Microbes are fixers—they that
make nutrients lives
available from
different/dissimilar
inorganic sources, e.g., nitrogen species or
 within the body of another
populations
Microbes are decomposers—they free up nutrients from no
symbiont.
longer living sources
 Microbes form symbioses (such as mycorrhizal fungi associated
with plant roots—though somewhat macroscopic, the bacteria
found in legume root nodules, etc.)
 Microbes serve as endosymbionts (e.g., chloroplasts and
mitochondria)
Mycorrhizal Fungi
 Why Study Microbiology?

Digestion: Animals Medicine: Many

have microorganisms antibiotics and other
in their digestive tract,
drugs are naturally
that are essential for
synthesized by
digestion and vitamin
microbes.
synthesis.
 Cellulose digestion by  Penicillin is made
ruminants (cows,
rabbits, etc.) by a mold.
 Vitamin K and B Penicillium notatum
synthesis in humans.
 Why Study Microbiology?

Food Medicine: Many

Industry: antibiotics and other
Many drugs are naturally
important synthesized by
foods and microbes.
beverages are  Penicillin is made
made with by a mold.
microbes Penicillium notatum
 Why Study Microbiology?

• Genetic Engineering. Recent advances in gene splicing

Genetic Engineering or
allow us to design recombinant microbes that produce
important products:
Recombinant DNA
 Human growth hormone (Dwarfism)
 Insulin (Diabetes)
Technology –
 Blood clotting factor (Hemophilia)
 Recombinant vaccines
Manufacturing &
 Hepatitis A and B vaccines
 Human hemoglobin (Emergency blood substitute)
manipulating genetic
 Taxol (Breast and ovarian cancer)
 Erythropoietin (Anemia)
material
 Monoclonal antibodies (Disease diagnosis and
prevention).
 Microbes & Industry
 Industry: Fermentation products (ethanol, acetone, etc.)
 Food: Wine, cheese, yogurt, bread, half-sour pickles, etc.
 Biotech: Recombinant products (e.g., human insulin, vaccines)
 Environment: Bioremediation

Each carton of Bugs+Plus provides easy to follow

step-by-step instructions, containers of specially-
formulated wet and dry nutrients and a container
of microbes cultured for their ability to digest oil
and other petroleum derivatives.
 Why Study Microbiology?

• Medical Research. Microbes are well suited for

biological and medical research for several reasons:
 Relatively simple and small structures, easy to
study.
 Genetic material is easily manipulated.
 Can grow a large number of cells very quickly
and at low cost.
 Short generation times make them very useful to
study genetic changes.
 Why Study Microbiology?
Every part of your body that
normally comes in contact
Indigenous flora with outside world (deep
lungs and stomach are
Normal flora exceptions).

Normal
Microbiota –
microorganisms that
colonizes a host without
causing disease (harmless)
 Why Study Microbiology?

Indigenous flora • Opportunistic

microorganisms or
Normal flora opportunists –
Normal possess the potential
Microbiota – to cause disease if
microorganisms that they gain access to a
colonizes a host part of the body where
without causing they don’t belong or
disease (harmless) when the host is
compromised.
Microbes and Disease:
Most microbes are either
beneficial or harmless to
humans.
 Categories of disease caused by Microorganisms

• Infectious • Microbial
Disease – results intoxication – results
when a pathogen when a person ingests
a toxin (poisonous
colonizes
substance) that has
(inhabits) the been produced in vitro
body & cause a (outside the body).
disease.
Impact of Infectious Disease
 Infectious diseases are diseases caused by
microbes
 200,000 deaths per year in U.S. from infectious
diseases
 ~20 million died from influenza (a disease
caused by a virus) in 1918
 “New” infectious diseases still being discovered
 Infectious Diseases Causing Most Deaths
Worldwide in 1998
Disease Cause Deaths/year
Acute Respiratory*Bacterial or viral 4,400,000
Diarrheal diseases Bacterial or viral 3,200,000
Tuberculosis Bacterial 3,100,000
Malaria Protozoan 3,100,000
Hepatitis B Viral 2,000,000
Measles Viral 1,500,000
AIDS Viral 1,000,000
Neonatal Tetanus Bacterial 600,000
*: Pneumonia, bronchitis, influenza, etc
 Microbes and Disease in Human History
• Bubonic Plague (Black death): Several
devastating epidemics throughout history.
• High mortality: Up to 80% of those infected die.
• 1347-1351: Over 75 million died in Europe, Asia,
and Africa.
• Over 25% of population of Europe died.
• Cause was unknown for over 500 years, leading to
superstition, persecution, and hysteria.
• Bacterial disease transmitted by rat fleas.
• Rare today but still occurs:
• 10-15 cases/year in U.S.
• Last epidemic occurred in India in 1994.
Left: Swollen lymph nodes in bubonic plague infection.
Right: Infected flea bite with eschar and carbuncle.
Source: Tropical Medicine and Parasitology, 1997.
Brueghel: The Triumph of Death (1560)
• Smallpox: One of deadliest human infectious
diseases throughout history.
• Caused by smallpox virus.
• First known case in 1175 B.C.: Egyptian pharaoh
Ramses V died from smallpox.
• Several hundred million deaths through history.
• Up to 90% of Native American population was killed
by smallpox and other diseases (measles and plague)
introduced during European conquests.
• Native population of Central and South America dropped from
130 million to about 1.6 million over several decades.
• Smallpox was used as a biological weapon by British colonists
in North America.
• 600,000 deaths/year in Europe from 1500-1700.
Smallpox infection in a small child.
Disease was eradicated worldwide by immunization in 1977.
Source: Microbiology Perspectives, 1999.
• Smallpox (Continued)

• 75% of survivors were severely scarred and/or

blinded.
• An effective vaccine was developed in 1870s by
Edward Jenner, using a related virus (cowpox).
• Smallpox was the first and only viral disease to be
completely eradicated (1977).
• Worldwide immunization campaign in 1960s.
• Only infects humans.
•Tuberculosis (TB): Caused by a bacterium
that mainly infects lungs but may spread to other
parts of body.
• Leading killer of world’s infectious diseases:
• 3 million die worldwide every year.
• One out of three people infected worldwide.
• Most healthy individuals can contain infection.
• Treatment: Antibiotics for up to one year.
• After introduction of antibiotics, TB declined from 1950s
to 80s, and then started to increase again.
• Low patient compliance with treatment has caused
antibiotic resistant TB.
• AIDS epidemic has caused an increase in cases.
Tuberculosis is leading killer among infectious diseases
worldwide. Patient with lymph node necrosis.
Photo by Dr. I. Small
• Childbirth Fever: Common nosocomial
(hospital acquired) infection.
• Bacterial infection of the uterus as a result of
childbirth or abortion.
• Transmitted by hands and instruments of
physicians and midwives.
• Extremely common before the 1900s.
• About 1 in 17 women who gave birth would become
infected (fever, chills, delirium, and death).
• Cause was unknown.
• Austrian doctor Semmelweiss showed that washing
hands and instruments with a disinfectant solution
greatly reduced cases.
• Today common in women who have illegal
abortions, especially in third world countries.
 • AIDS: Acquired Immune Deficiency
Syndrome.
• First cases reported in 1981 at UCLA.
• Cause: Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)
• Transmitted by sexual contact, blood transfusions,
mother-to-child, and infected needles.
• Destroys an individual’s immune system, making
them susceptible to many infectious diseases and
cancer.
• Number of cases has grown rapidly during the last
two decades. As of 2001:
• Over 900,000 infected individuals in the U.S.
• Over 40 million deaths worldwide.
Endemic Kaposi’s Sarcoma, nodular form in an AIDS patient.
Source: AIDS, 1997.
Extensive symmetric tumor lesions of Kaposis’s sarcoma in an
AIDS patient.
Source: AIDS, 1997
Oral candidiasis (yeast infection) in an AIDS patient
Source: Atlas of Clinical Oral Pathology, 1999
MicroDude Comes to Work
Important Point:
Important Point:
 Critical Thinking
• Now that you are entering the nursing
profession, which is a health-related
profession, of what value will knowledge of
microbiology be to you?
 Assignment:
• Microorganisms are said to be ubiquitous.
Can you think of any location that would be
devoid of microorganism.