From the monthly archives: January 2011
Pure water has both a freezing point and melting point of 0˚C; however water also has colligative properties meaning that the freezing point can vary depending on the number of molecules dissolved in it.
Virulence is the ability of a microorganism to produce disease. Virulence depends on the number of infecting bacteria, their route of entry into the body, the response of the host immune system and any characteristics specific to that bacteria.
M. haemolytica is responsible for causing contagious bovine pleuropneumonia, a bacterial disease which causes pneumonia and inflammation of the lung membranes and Bordetella bronchiseptica is an evolutionary progenitor of B. pertussis and is one of the organisms responsible for causing kennel cough in dogs.
The generic purpose of an antibiotic is to prevent the growth and/or survival of invading organisms whilst causing minimal damage and toxicity to the host. The typical mechanism of antibiotic action involves targeting specific enzymes or substrates of the invading bacterial species.
Staphylococcus is a gram positive, cocci shaped, genus of bacteria. Observed under a microscope will reveal they exist in microscopic ‘grape-like’ clusters. One species of staphylococci, Staphylococcus aureus, can grow at temperature ranges of 15-45ºC and at a relatively high NaCl concentration of 15%.
Point Mutations
Much like humans, bacteria are subject to evolution. Evolution occurs through beneficial mutations in the DNA. Because bacteria have much shorter generation times than humans, the process of evolution occurs much more rapidly. An example of how bacteria evolve through mutation is point mutation.
Point mutation is the random mutation of DNA nucleotides [...]
A simple and rapid method of quantifying the amount of virus in a sample. Haemagglutination is the agglutination of red blood cells. Viruses with envelops or surface proteins are able to bind to the sialic acid, N-Acetylneuraminic acid found in the cell membrane of red blood cells.
Leptospirosis is a zoonotic disease caused by the bacterial genus Leptospira. Leptospires are spirochetes, a group of Gram-negative bacteria with long, thin, spiral structures and an internal flagella used for movement.
Only a tiny amount of bacteria found on Earth are actually associated with disease. The number associated with human disease is as low as 0.001%. Bacteria are extremely small when compared to humans, for example the width of an average bacterium is often no greater than 1.5μm.
I would like to thank everyone who visited VetSci in 2010! This year, the site proved very popular and it could not have achieved it without you! Averaging at around 5,000 views per month now (and continuing to grow) this blog has become more popular than I ever thought.
