Vampire Bacteria

Bacteria "vampire" is a type of bacteria that consumed other bacteria, this behavior is found in 30 years installation of waste disposal. Micavibrio aeruginosavorus, thus the original name of the bacteria, called a vampire because it has the ability to live by sucking nutrients from other bacteria.

A recent study by scientists from the University of Virginia with modern genetic techniques successfully isolate and sequence the genome ofthe bacterium vampire, open several possibilities for utilizing bacteria.

Genetic analysis reveals that Micavibrio aeruginosavorus unable to live even though there are abundant nutrients in the vicinity. Because these bacteria do not have a gene that controls the transport of nutrients from inside to outside the cell. Nutrition should be obtained directly from other bacteria.

Researchers found that bacteria have genes that help vampire bacteria produce compounds to attach themselves to other bacteria. Genes that control the transport processes of nutrients from prey bacteria into the cells Micavibrio aeruginosavorus.

When bacteria attach to their prey vampire, the gene is activated, establish a kind of bridge between two cells. When the bridge is built of nutrients from the bacteria that prey will flow into the bacterial cell vampire.

Micavibrio aeruginosavorus said as prey on many types of bacteria. Thus, bacteria that can be used to kill other bacteria are harmful and cause disease, for example, be used as a living antibiotic.

"The pathologist can use these bacteria to fight fire with fire. These bacteria will hunt down and attack specific bacteria that are harmful to humans," Matin said Wu, a researcher, as quoted by Live Science, Tuesday (11/01/2011), then." Maybe for antibiotics such as Micavibrio aeruginosavorus living, because attacking specific targets of certain pathogens, can reduce our dependence on traditional antibiotics and reduce drug resistance problem that we face today," added Wu.

Bacterial Culture

Bacteria Articles:

• Bacteria Poisonous to Food
• To Kill Bacteria

Bacteria Culture:

• Surprisingly, many, perhaps even most, of the bacteria on Earth cannot be grown in the laboratory today.
• Bacteria need a set of specific nutrients, the correct amount of oxygen, and a proper temperature to grow. The common gut bacterium Escherichia coli (E. coli) grows easily on partially digested extracts made from yeast and animal products, at 37 degrees in a normal atmosphere. These simple growth conditions have made E. coli a favorite lab organism, which is used as a model for other bacteria.

Basic of Bacteria Culture

• Bacteria are generally grown in either of 2 ways: on solid media as individual colonies, or in liquid culture.
• The nutrient broth for liquid culture allows rapid growth up to a maximum density. Liquid culture is easy and cheap.
• Solid media use the same nutrient broth as liquid culture, solidifying it with agar. Agar a polysaccharides derived from seaweed that most bacteria can’t digest.
• The purpose of growth on solid media is to isolate individual bacterial cells, then grow each cell up into a colony. This is the standard way to create a pure culture of bacteria. All cells of a colony are closely related to the original cell that started the colony, with only a small amount of genetic variation possible.
• Solid media are also used to count the number of bacteria that were in a culture tube.

Bacteria Mutant

• Mutants in bacteria are mostly biochemical in nature, because we can’t generally see the cells.
• The most important mutants are auxotrophs. An auxotroph needs some nutrient that the wild type strain (prototroph) can make for itself. For example, a trp- auxotroph can’t make its own tryptophan (an amino acid). To grow trp- bacteria, you need to add tryptophan to the growth medium. Prototroph's are trp+; they don’t need any tryptophan supplied since they make their own.
• Chemoauxotrophs are mutants that can’t use some nutrient (usually a sugar) that prototrophs can use as food. For example, lac- mutants can’t grow on lactose (milk sugar), but lac+ prototrophs can grow on lactose.
• Resistance mutants confer resistance to some environmental toxin: drugs, heavy metals, bacteriophage, etc. For instance, AmpR causes bacteria to be resistant to ampicillin, a common antibiotic related to penicillin.
• Auxotrophs and chemoauxotrophs are usually recessive; drug resistance mutants are usually dominant.