An individual can receive injections of an antiserum or purified antibodies derived from
an immune individual.
Depending on the particular metabolism of a bacterium, electron transport can be used
to energize and rotate ATP synthase.
Bacteria that degrade aromatic compounds with reductions steps rather than oxygenase
activity prior to ring fission are likely to be anaerobes.
HLAs are responsible for immune-mediated organ transplant rejection.
It is estimated that less than 4% of all cases of salmonellosis are reported.
Pyrite (FeS2) is common in bituminous coal and metal ores and is a critical component
of the microbial leaching of ores and acid mine drainage.
The study of hantaviruses requires biosafety level (BSL) 4 precautions.
Chitin is found ONLY in fungi and insects.
Electron microscopes have less resolving power than light microscopes.
MOST wastewater treatment facilities employ methods designed to detect each
pathogenic organism that may be present in a given sample.
ALL antigens are immunogens.
Due to the number of phosphate groups, ATP has approximately three times more
energy stored than AMP, and ADP has approximately two-thirds the energy stored of
ATP.
The latent phase in the viral growth curve and the lag phase of the bacterial growth
curve are equivalent and represent the time it takes for the virus or bacterium to adapt to
the culture conditions and begin growing.
A lytic infection results in death of the host cell.
Water disinfection agents such as chlorine can easily inactivate viruses.
The diversity of genome type and the overall number of bacteriophage that infect
Escherichia coli is numerous, but many other bacterial taxa that thrive in the
environment are likely infected by a variety of phage as well.
Some Streptomyces spp. can biosynthesize several chemically unrelated structures that
act as different antibiotics.
Rickettsia prowazekii is transmitted to humans when a louse bite becomes contaminated
with louse feces.
Genomic libraries enable the discovery of individual gene(s) involved in a particular
function of interest with cloning vectors in an expression host, such as Escherichia coli.
Most fungi are aerobic chemoorganotrophs that decompose large molecular weight
compounds by secreting extracellular enzymes.
RNA is incapable of forming secondary structure.
In water, MOST taste- and odor-producing compounds are inorganic in nature.
Due to the relationship between the rate of enzyme catalysis and temperature,
organisms living in boiling hot springs are also rapid growers with fast doubling times.
Vaccines can be developed from synthetic peptides.
Finding no bacterial growth, despite persistent urinary tract symptoms, indicates that
the problem is likely either non-pathogenically physiological or psychosomatic.
Reservoirs of infectious disease agents may be either animate or inanimate.
One problem with both BACs and YACs is that genetic regions of these chromosomes
cannot be subcloned.
Lysozyme is an enzyme that can ultimately lyse and kill eukaryotic cells by breaking
β-1,4-glycosidic bonds in peptidoglycan.
Bacteriophage that have single-stranded genomes are specialized to minimize energy
requirements because just one strand is necessary for replication.
Metaproteomics is a more developed field than metatranscriptomics due to the high
sensitivity of mass spectrometry.
Due to the slow and varied growth rates, mycobacteria are commonly grouped into
either slow growing or very slow growing, which has consequences on the growth
medium selected for culturing.
Various Ixodes spp., as well as various Borrelia spp., may be involved in the
transmission and cause of Lyme disease.
The production of a functional gene product by transforming bacteria that lack a lacZ
gene with a plasmid containing a lacZ gene is known as
A) complementation.
B) mitosis.
C) transfection.
D) reversion.
Proteins derived from infecting viruses are taken up and digested in the cytoplasm in a
structure called the
A) phagosome.
B) liposome.
C) proteasome.
D) nucleosome.
Archaea in pelagic deep-water are almost exclusively
A) Crenarchaeota.
B) Euryarchaeota.
C) Nanoarchaeota.
D) Thaumarchaeota.
Naegleria fowleri is a free-living ________ that causes infection by ________.
A) amoeba / entering through the nose and burrowing into the brain
B) fungus / entering the lungs when contaminated soil is disturbed
C) flagellated protist / crossing the intestinal mucosa into the blood
D) protist / entering the vagina in women, the prostate and seminal vesicles of men, or
the urethra of both males and females
Optical density and viable cell concentration are LEAST proportional to each other
during
A) lag phase.
B) exponential growth phase.
C) stationary phase.
D) death phase.
An Etest is a clinical tool used for the determination of
A) enteric presence.
B) Escherichia coli O157:H7 presence.
C) the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) value of an antimicrobial agent.
D) pathogenic enzyme activity.
Water leaving an efficient wastewater treatment facility ideally has a biochemical
oxygen demand (BOD) between ________ units.
A) 50 and 100
B) 25 and 50
C) 5 and 25
D) 0 and 5
The function of RNA polymerase is to
A) catalyze the formation of phosphodiester bonds between deoxyribonucleotids.
B) catalyze the formation of phosphodiester bonds between ribonucleotides.
C) cleave mRNA to remove introns.
D) activate tRNAs.
Which of the following is a function of dendritic cells?
A) antigen presentation
B) plaque formation
C) phagocytosis
D) both phagocytosis and plaque formation
Which of the following processes does denitrification contribute to?
A) acid rain
B) ozone depletion
C) global warming
D) acid rain, ozone depletion, and global warming
Whooping cough is frequently observed in
A) elderly residents of nursing homes.
B) individuals with compromised immunity.
C) children under 6 months of age.
D) health care providers.
A loose network of polymers extending outward from a cell is called a(n)
A) slime layer.
B) lipid A.
C) capsule.
D) adhesion.
Light energy passes from phycobiliproteins to reaction centers in
A) cyanobacteria.
B) green sulfur bacteria.
C) purple bacteria.
D) most photosynthetic bacteria.
________ in saliva cleaves glycosidic linkages in peptidoglycan present in bacterial cell
walls, weakening the wall and causing cell lysis.
A) Mucus
B) Lysozyme
C) Fibrin
D) Lipid A
What organisms are good competitors for free water present in foods with low aw?
A) gram-positive cocci
B) fungi
C) gram-negative bacilli
D) gram-positive bacilli
The antigen-binding site of an antibody accommodates a small portion of the antigen
called a(n)
A) lipopolysaccharide.
B) epitope.
C) peptide motif.
D) pathogen associated molecular pattern (PAMP).
Plastocyanin is a
A) membrane-bound sac found in certain bacteria.
B) photosynthetic pigment found in some bacteria.
C) copper-containing protein in photosystem II that donates electrons to photosystem I.
D) blue-green bacterium known for its unusual photoreactive complex.
Superantigens produce a harmful immune response because
A) they activate too many T cells, causing excessive inflammation and cell damage.
B) they initiate a type I allergic response resulting in excessive inflammation.
C) too many phagocytes are activated and destroy host tissue.
D) a strong immune response is necessary to protect the host from the pathogen.
Stem cells are produced and developed in the
A) bone marrow.
B) brain.
C) liver.
D) stems of plants.
RNA viruses encode host restriction systems designed to destroy host DNA.
Which organisms are NOT involved in food fermentations?
A) lactic acid bacteria
B) sulfuric acid bacteria
C) acetic acid bacteria
D) propionic acid bacteria
Aerobic secondary treatment is usually best for ________ wastewater.
A) industrial
B) agricultural
C) residential
D) chemical
The most frequent way in which regulatory RNA molecules exert their effects is by
A) base pairing with other RNA molecules that have regions of complementary
sequence.
B) binding to a repressor and repressing enzyme transcription.
C) acting as an inducer that then binds to an activator protein to allow transcription to
proceed.
D) signal transduction.
When laser tweezers are used, the laser beam traps
A) isolated single-copy genomes.
B) a single microbial cell.
C) a single microbial colony on a plate.
D) multiple cells of the same type.
Extremely halophilic Archaea often form ________ in order to access ________.
A) stalks / nutrients
B) intracellular inclusions / elemental sulfur
C) gas vesicles / oxygen
D) intracellular membranes / sunlight
Diazotrophs maximize nitrogenase activity by
A) closely coupling N2 fixation with high rates of photosynthesis.
B) fixing N2 at times when oxygen is absent or in low concentrations.
C) producing specialized structures to protect nitrogenase from oxygen.
D) producing specialized structures or fixing N2 at times when oxygen is absent to
protect nitrogenase from oxygen.
The ribosomes of Halobacterium require high ________ levels for stability and activity.
A) KCl
B) NaCl
C) NaSO4
D) acidic amino acids
You are studying 12 new isolates from the human skin. The isolates have 16S rRNA
sequences that are 97% similar and share important phenotypic traits. Their genomes
have 55% of their genes in common. The isolates would most likely be
A) classified as individual strains of the same species.
B) classified as individual species of the same genus.
C) split into different families.
D) classified as the same species if they can mate via conjugation.
Which of the following techniques can link prokaryotic phylogeny and function?
A) DAPI staining
B) stable isotope probing
C) environmental genomics
D) environmental genomics and stable isotope probing
Predict how Pasteur’s conclusions on spontaneous generation with swan flasks would
have changed if he worked with and maintained the flasks in a sterile laminar flow
hood.
A) Sterilization of the swan flask solutions would not have been necessary to reject
spontaneous generation. If he did sterilize the flasks, the spontaneous generation
hypothesis would have been supported.
B) His incubation times would not have been sufficient to refute spontaneous
generation.
C) Pasteur’s flasks never would have putrefied, and the experiment would not have
refuted spontaneous generation.
D) Viruses would have still been present, and his conclusion would have been
unchanged.
When dendritic cells ingest antigen, they migrate to the ________, where they present
the antigen to T lymphocytes.
A) kidneys
B) lymph nodes
C) thymus
D) spleen
Which of the following flaviviruses can be prevented by vaccination?
A) yellow fever
B) dengue fever
C) hantavirus
D) Ebola
Retroviruses are medically important viruses because
A) they include the viruses the cause hepatitis.
B) some retroviruses cause cancer.
C) they include the virus that causes AIDS.
D) they include viruses that cause cancer and AIDS.
Which algae are MOST closely related to plants?
A) red algae
B) green algae
C) brown algae
D) euglenoids
Describe a method developed by molecular biologists to easily observe the success of a
genetic engineering procedure involving the ligating of a gene of interest into a
plasmid.
Why are antibiotics of little value by themselves in the treatment of cholera?
Describe three characteristics of an ideal cloning host for genetic engineering.
Describe one use of bacteriophage Mu for a bacterial geneticist, and explain why it is
useful.
When a fecal sample is collected from an ill patient, how are each of the following
identified: bacterial cell, eukaryotic protist, and virus?
Explain three reasons why bacteria form biofilms.
What is souring of crude oil and how does the petroleum industry control it?
What is the difference between an organism being piezophilic and piezotolerant?
Propose an experiment to identify members capable of assimilating monomers of lignin
within a microbial community.
If you wanted to discover a novel biosynthetic pathway for an antimicrobial compound
and were given a handful of soil, describe the key experimental steps you would need to
take to accomplish the task and explain why alternative procedures were not performed.
Can gene frequencies change in the absence of selection? Why or why not?
Explain why some viruses contain enzymes within the virion and others do not. Use
specific examples to support your answer.
Propose a growth setup that an industrial microbiologist would create to obtain large
quantities of a bacteriocidal product of secondary metabolism. Be certain to explain
how temperature and dissolved oxygen parameters would be selected as well as how
stationary growth phase would be maintained.
Describe four environmental conditions that would likely change the relative
abundances of the members within a microbial community.
Describe the basic two-component regulatory system, and compare the function of each
component.
Contrast fermentation and respiration in terms of electron donor, electron acceptor, type
of ATP production, and relative number of ATP produced.
Draw a microbial-based nitrogen cycle. In the open ocean there is plenty of sunlight and
carbon dioxide for primary production, yet photosynthesis is limited in the open ocean
compared to other aquatic environments. What limits photosynthesis in the open ocean?
Ocean and lake water typically contain 107 virions/mL. Does this mean that swimming
in or drinking this water will make you sick? Why or why not? How do these viruses
impact human and environmental health?
Why are rabies shots given to domestic animals yearly and not just once in the animal’s
lifetime?