Hello everyone!
For this week, our lecturer makes a revision class before our test on Friday, hence we covered the topic on Introduction to Prokaryotes. What I have got from this class is we could know that the prokaryotes is defined as a group of microbe that lacks in nucleus and membrane-bound organelles. To understand the morphology of prokaryotes, we can identify it by viewing at the shape whether it is a cocci, bacilli, vibrio or spiral. For a prokaryote that is pleomorphic, it is because a certain properties in the cell wall makes it could change it shape easily compare to other organism. We also learned about the axial filaments, fimbriae, flagella, glycolcalyx and pili that is on the cell structures and how does it works in the cell.
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| Arrangements of Bacilli |
We also have Test I on Microbiology I subject. It covers from the Introduction to Microbiology, Microscopy, Classification of Organisms and Introduction to Prokaryotes. After these topics that I have learned, I feel that I can answer the questions in the test, but still there are a lot of things I need to study and understand.
That's all for this week. See you next time!
Hello everyone!
For this week, we have learned a new topic about the Classification of Organism. We are divided into groups and each person in the group would search about sub-topic in the chapter such as the taxonomy, nomenclature, phylogenetic, methods and classification. Each of us will tell our findings to the others and vice versa.
In this chapter, I found that the methods of classifying and identifying microorganisms gives a big impression to me since I also learn it in BMY3201 Basic Microbiology Techniques. There are many methods that can be used to classify and identify the microbes, for instance:
- Differential staining
-> Gram staining
-> Acid-fast staining
-> Negative staining for capsules
- Biochemical tests
-> Phenol red broth
-> Gelatin test
-> Starch hydrolysis
- Serology
-> Western blotting
- Phase-typing
- Fatty acid profiles
- DNA Base Composition
- DNA fingerprinting
- Nucleic acid hybridization
Each of the methods used have their own purpose to ensure that we could study and understand more about the microbe that we want to know. These methods are useful since it could help in making a lot of discovery on microorganisms.
That's all for this week. See you next week!
Hello everyone!
For this week, we have started a new topic that is, Microscopy.
This topic is about microscope and what kind of microscope is suitable to use since not all microbes can be seen under the same type of microscope, right? The microscope helps us to get the magnified image of the sample and it gets to separate the details in the image. There are two types of microscope which is the light microscope that has varieties, such as:
- Bright-field microscope
- Confocal microscope
- Dark-field microscope
- Fluorescence microscope
- Phase-contrast microscope
There are also electron microscope that used a beam electron to produce the magnified image. For instance:
- Scanning electron microscope (SEM)
- Transmission electron microscope (TEM)
- Electron cryotomography
Before using the microscope, we have to make a preparation for the specimen by making a staining to the specimen. We can use varieties of staining procedure such as:
- Simple staining
- Differential staining
-> Gram staining -> Acid-fast staining
- Special staining
-> Negative staining
-> Endospore staining
-> Flagella staining
This week, we also have a quiz on this topic. The question is about the types of microscope used based on the picture given. I managed to get 5 questions right out of 6 questions.
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| Quiz 1 |
This topic is interesting as I could learn about the usage of the microscope properly and even though it's only in a picture shown by my lecturer, I feel excited to see the image of the microbe under the microscope.
That's all for this week. See you next time!
Hello everyone!
For this week, we continued from the last week's topic. We learnt about the characteristic of algae and virus. The algae's morphology can be identify by its colour. The algae can be found in either brown, green or red in colour. The reason why it's in different colour is because of the pigmentation that occur in the algae itself. For an application in industry, the algae is often used to make colour for shirts, making a dental mold, emulsifier and even as a food source.
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| Types of algae based on colour |
Another microorganism is virus which have DNA and RNA. The microorganism have a very small and we have to view it under a special microscope called electron microscope. The virus can reproduce inside the cells of a living host since they cannot grow and multiply by themselves.
We also learnt about the famous scientist in pasteurization. The name given is Louis Pasteur, who was a French biologist, microbiologist and chemist. He discovered the process which is the pasteurization that kills microbes in alcohol such as beer and wine. He stated that the process helps in preventing the alcohol from spoils and became sour since the spoilage factor came from the bacteria in the alcohol. It turns out that pasteurization helps in prolonging the quality of the beverages and the process is also used in dairy products nowadays.
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| Louis Pasteur, the discoverer of pasteurization process |
I think the topic on the historical figures in Microbiology is very interesting since we could study and differentiate the old and new process that they have invented. We could also appreciate the discovery that they found for the sake of the future.
That's all for this week. See you next week!
