Anthrax is an emerging disease for which there is no treatment or vaccine available.
Genomics analysis of recently isolated viruses indicate some viruses contain larger
genomes than the some bacterial genomes.
During elongation of a cell during binary fission, small gaps caused by
transglycosylases are formed before cell membrane precursors can be inserted.
Unlike other cyanobacteria, Prochlorococcus lacks phycobilins.
Septicemic plague usually causes death before a diagnosis can be made.
One way to study a microbial ecosystem is to isolate microorganisms from it and study
their properties in laboratory culture.
Soil particles are classified based on their size.
Intercalating agents, like acridine orange and ethidium bromide, lead to mutagenesis by
pushing DNA base pairs apart, which can lead to insertions or deletions.
Selection against self-reactive clones results in the development of tolerance.
Inverted repeats are common features of transcription termination sequences in all three
domains of life.
Magnetosomes are specialized magnetic structures, found in iron-reducing bacteria, that
aid in chemotaxis towards iron-oxides.
Many pathogenic organisms require living hosts as reservoirs to survive.
In principle, a type II restriction endonuclease with an 8-nucleotide recognition
sequence should cut 1 in every 48 nucleotide positions.
A bacterium’s pH optimum reflects the optimal pH of its intracellular environment.
In substrate-level phosphorylation, ATP storage is depleted during the steps in
catabolism of the fermentable compounds.
DNA:DNA hybridization is a sensitive method for revealing subtle genetic differences
because it measures the degree of sequence similarity between two genomes.
Hormones that are produced under stress boost normal immune responses and play a
role in stress-mediated disease resistance.
Individuals with severe combined immunodeficiency syndrome (SCID) have a genetic
defect that prevents proper formation and expression of immunoglobins and T cells and
therefore do not have adaptive immunity.
In most cases, the first product of a particular biosynthetic pathway represses the
enzymes of the pathway.
Coral bleaching is primarily caused by antimicrobials that disrupt the mutualistic
relationships formed between corals and their bacterial symbionts.
Lateral gene transfer is one plausible explanation as to why organisms in Archaea,
Bacteria, and Eukarya still share so many genes among such distinct domains.
Once a putative pure culture has been obtained from the environment, it is no longer
necessary to check its purity.
Calcium is cycled most rapidly in terrestrial environments.
Modification enzymes typically methylate specific bases within the recognition
sequence to prevent digestion of the nucleotide sequence by restriction endonucleases.
A regulon always includes at least two operons.
BOTH physical and chemical methods are used to treat and purify water.
Enrichment cultures can be established by placing the inoculum into selective media
and incubating under specific conditions.
Strict anaerobic organisms are not suited for GFP reporters due to the protein requiring
oxygen to fluoresce.
Archaea and Bacteria dominate the upper 100 m of the open ocean while viruses
dominate depths greater than 100 m.
Thus far, only Archaea have been found in the salt lakes, while Bacteria and Eukarya
are noticeably absent.
Bacteria and Archaea are general single-celled organisms, but some phyla form sheaths
around multiple cells to facilitate attachment and filament formation.
The clonal selection theory states that each antigen-reactive B cell or T cell has a cell
surface receptor for a single antigen epitope.
The lacZ gene is commonly used as a reporter gene, because its substrate lactose is well
known and easily measured.
Denitrification of fertilizer can result in harmful algal blooms.
In a given chemical reaction, if the free energy of formation is known for all of the
reactants and each of the products, the change in free energy can be calculated for the
reaction.
Despite GC pairs having an additional hydrogen bond than AT pairs, hyperthermophilic
Archaea generally have a lower GC ratio in their genomes when compared to other
heat-sensitive prokaryotes.
All gram-negative bacteria have lipopolysaccharides in their outer membranes.
Which group of amoebozoans is MOST likely to cause illness in humans?
A) dictyostelium
B) entamoebas
C) gymnamoebas
D) slime molds
Which objective would be best to use a Southern blot rather than a Northern blot?
A) Determine if a gene is present in a genome.
B) Discover gene function.
C) Identify regulatory gene-protein interactions.
D) Quantify expression profiles of a gene.
Which bacillus-shaped genus are primarily intracellular parasites of arthropods such as
crustaceans and insects?
A) Coxiella
B) Klebsiella
C) Roseospirillum
D) Wolbachia
A nonliving source of an infectious agent that infects a large number of people is called
a
A) fomite.
B) reservoir.
C) vector.
D) vehicle.
Which of the treatments listed below would be MOST effective for a patient with a
genetic defect that causes severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID)?
A) intravenous antibiotics
B) bone marrow transplant
C) multiple immunizations
D) repeated doses of antisera
The serine pathway and ribulose monophosphate pathway can both be used by
________ as a way to incorporate carbon into biomass.
A) acetogens
B) anoxygenic hydrocarbon fermenters
C) methanogens
D) methylotrophs
Divergence of the green and red algal lineages at least partially explains how two
different primary endosymbiosis events occurred to form different chloroplast types in
different taxa.
Which of the following is NOT a trait of the Planctomycetes?
A) undergo budding cell division
B) have intracellular compartmentalization
C) lack peptidoglycan
D) undergo plant symbiosis
Cells that can engulf foreign particles, and can ingest, kill, and digest most bacterial
pathogens are called
A) red blood cells.
B) phagocytes.
C) reticulocytes.
D) resistant cells.
Based on the life cycle of Schistosoma species, which of the following would be MOST
effective in controlling schistosomiasis?
A) elimination of stagnate water
B) bed nets
C) proper sewage and water treatment
D) frequent sanitization of shared toilets, showers, and saunas
Which of the following samples would contain the MOST genetic diversity?
A) viral metagenomes from the ocean
B) bacterial metagenomes from the ocean
C) microbial eukaryotic metagenomes from the ocean
D) viral metagenomes from human red blood cells
Resident staphylococci in the ________ seldom cause disease.
A) eyes
B) upper respiratory tract
C) lungs
D) kidneys
TCRs associate with the adapter molecule
A) CD3.
B) CD28.
C) Igα.
D) Igβ.
In Bacteria, sensor kinases that respond to extracellular signals transfer this signal to
the cytoplasmic machinery by typically phosphorylating the ________ residues.
A) histidine
B) serine
C) threonine
D) tyrosine
Humans are incidental hosts for ________, thus infected humans CANNOT spread the
disease.
A) Toxoplasma gondii
B) Trichomoniasis vaginalis
C) Entamoeba histolytica
D) Plasmodium vivax
At what temperature are most household freezers kept?
A) 4C
B) 0C
C) -20C
D) -80C
Which of the following is the dominate genera of skin microflora?
A) Bacteriodes
B) Firmicutes
C) Actinobacteria
D) Proteobacteria
What genome composition makes viruses most susceptible to destruction by
prokaryotic restriction endonucleases?
A) dsDNA
B) ssDNA
C) dsRNA
D) ssRNA
Which statement is TRUE?
A) Populations are assemblages of microbial communities.
B) Microbial communities are assemblages of populations.
C) Habitats are assemblages of microbial communities.
D) Populations are assemblages of habitats.
Which of the following is NOT a trait of rickettsias?
A) They are obligate intracellular parasites.
B) They lack cell walls.
C) They have not been cultivated in the absence of host cells.
D) Both the host and parasite are required in order to be alive and metabolically active.
Transformation and homologous recombination allow for the formation of heteroduplex
DNA. Which of the following would occur during DNA replication of this molecule?
A) One daughter strand is complementary to the recombinant DNA molecule, while the
other daughter strand is complementary to the parent DNA molecule.
B) Both daughter strands are complementary to the recombinant DNA molecule.
C) Both daughter strands are complementary to the parent DNA molecule.
D) None of the answers are correct.
Transposition is a(n)
A) homologous recombination event.
B) analogous recombination event.
C) site-specific recombination event.
D) general recombination event.
The most common electron donor among hyperthermophilic Archaea is
A) Fe+3.
B) H2.
C) SO4.
D) So.
DNA participates in protein synthesis through
A) cyclic messengers.
B) direct pairing with amino acids.
C) an RNA intermediate.
D) protein folding.
Some intracellular pathogens produce phagocyte-killing proteins called ________ that
kill the phagocyte after ingestion of the pathogen.
A) antibodies
B) antigens
C) leukocidins
D) pus
The element(s) that have proven useful for stable isotope studies are
A) carbon.
B) nitrogen.
C) sulfur.
D) carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur.
Spoilage of bread, which appears dark green-blue to black in color, is MOST likely
caused by the fungus
A) Aspergillus niger.
B) Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis
C) Glomus spp.
D) Rhizopus stolonifer.
An important intestinal pathogen generally acquired from contaminated food or water is
A) Clostridium perfringens.
B) Mycobacterium tuberculosis.
C) Ebola virus.
D) Escherichia coli O157:H7.
Identifying proteases being essential for replication of a virus would suggest the virus
A) lyses its host following genome replication.
B) contains at least one polyprotein.
C) has a single-stranded RNA genome.
D) uses at least one set of overlapping genes.
Viruses infecting ________ are typically the easiest to grow in the laboratory.
A) plants
B) animals
C) fungi
D) prokaryotes
________ is the acquired inability to mount an adaptive immune response against self.
A) Memory
B) Specificity
C) Tolerance
D) Immunogenicity
The inflammatory response to Corynebacterium diphtheriae infection results in the
production of a lesion called a(n)
A) pseudomembrane.
B) chancre.
C) lesion.
D) pustule.
The function of the parabasal body is to
A) allow for photosynthesis to occur.
B) give structural support to the Golgi complex.
C) allow for the formation of energy from aerobic respiration.
D) give structural support to the endoflagellum.
Which of the following is/are MHC class I genes?
A) HLA-A
B) HLA-B
C) HLA-C
D) HLA-A, HLA-B, and HLA-C
Bacteria with type IV pili
A) possess tubular or stalk-like extensions of their cells.
B) likely exhibit twitching motility.
C) have capsules that promote dehydration.
D) live in aquatic environments.
Describe the three main components to PCR-based testing.
Carl Woese was an important figure in microbial classification and changed our
understanding of the evolution and diversity of life. What breakthrough did he make
that allowed us to infer evolutionary relationships between organisms? What
assumptions was his breakthrough based on?
The explosive chemical trinitrotoluene (TNT) can remain in soils after use and is
hazardous to humans. Propose an experiment in which TNT-degrading microorganisms
could be isolated for purposes of bioremediation. Also indicate what experimental
evidence would be useful to isolate TNT-degrading microorganisms.
Is there a certain type of virus morphology that is especially known to cause disease in
humans? Explain your reasoning.
Using specific examples, explain why it is sometimes impossible to satisfy Robert
Koch’s postulates.
Why are the words “about” and “approximately” used in discussing the results of
genomic analysis? Predict what advances in knowledge or methods could change our
understanding of a genome sequence.
Based on the FUNCTIONAL characteristics of the Cyanobacteria and Proteobacteria
phyla, which phylum do you think is more deeply rooted in the tree of life (i.e. which
phylum branches off closer to the last universal common ancestor)? Use at least two
pieces of evidence to support your answer. How could you test your hypothesis?
How can foreign DNA of greater than 300 kbp be inserted and stably maintained in
BAC vectors?
Explain why only anaerobic bacteria inhabited Earth for the first two billion years of its
existence.
Describe the hydrogen hypothesis and why it is favored over other hypotheses.
Defend why codon usage must be considered when cloning a gene into another
organism.
Defend why is it unsurprising that two-component regulatory systems are all but absent
in bacteria that live at the expense of a host?
How is an open reading frame (ORF) identified and used to determine the sequence of
amino acids in the gene it encodes for?
Coal contains substantial amounts of mercury. When coal is burned to generate heat or
electricity, the mercury is released into the atmosphere. Most of this mercury is
eventually deposited in the ocean or other aquatic environments. What happens to the
mercury once it is deposited in the ocean?
Briefly describe classical complement activation and cell damage.
Describe the methodology employed when antibodies are used to detect proteins.
Consider the development of a fossil record for a watershed. A current inventory of all
species already has been taken. Which microorganisms might you first consider looking
for with the objective of developing a microbial fossil record? Why? Also, what might
depth profiling accomplish?
Is the following statement TRUE or FALSE? Explain why you think so.
“Proteins are the only biomolecules capable of catalyzing bond formation.”