Lower Kingdoms!

A kingdom by kingdom look at viruses, fungus, bacteria and protozoa

Marshall Jiang
5th Period • Chiles High School • March 27, 2008

Marshall Jiang • email: marshall.jiang@gmail.com • Biology 1

 Virus

Lytic Infection Lysogenic Infec- Dead or Alive?

tion
A virus is not considered alive due to
The host cellʼs ma- The virusʼs DNA is the fact that:
chinery are con- inserted into the 1. they have no metabolism
verted to produce cellular DNA so that 2. they form crystals, a property of
the virus. The ribo- the virusʼs DNA is chemicals
somes and en- replicated with the 3. they are dependent upon a host
zymes make the cell. The virus may cell to reproduce
various parts of the escape from time to 4. They do not respond to stimuli
virus and the cell time, infecting other
lyses to release the cells or may go into
viruses a lytic cycle.

Pros Cons
Virus Defense The ability of virus The viruses can
Possible defence/treatment of a viral
to insert their DNA easily replicate,
infection is to use restriction enzymes
into cells allows evolve and evade
that recognize the virusʼs DNA. The
gene therapy to cells at the cellʼs
enzyme then will cut and remove the
take advantage of expense, some-
DNA, allowing the cell to resume
them times causing
normal operation.
death or the organ-
ism
 Fungus

Past Infections Types of Fungus

In the 20th century, the destruction of elm trees in the
United States and Europe was caused by the fungus
Ceratocystis ulmi. The disease is mainly transferred
through the Elm beetles.
The fungus, Phytophthora infestans, is responsible for
the potato famine of the 1840ʼs. The resulting famine
left over 1 million dead and more than 1.5 million left
Ireland. This blight is currently also a big threat to po-
tato crops now as a new strain appeared which is ex-
tremely virulent and destructive.
1. Deuteromycota - No spore, reproduces
asexually
2. Chytridiomycota (chytrids) - Produces
spores that are capable of movement with
a flagellum
3. Basidiomycota (club fungi) - produces
meiospores (produced by meiosis, hap-
loid)

Human diseases Edible Fungus

Fungus rarely infect humans because most of The most common types of edible fungus are
them are facultative parasites. Some examples of mushrooms. Other edible uses for fungus in-
human diseases caused by fungus includes: cludes using their spores to foment the
growth of mold in cheeses.
• Conidiobolus coronatus - Nasal polyps and
sinus infection Some examples are:
• Ustilago maydis - skin lesions 1. Stilton Cheese
• Schizophyllum commune - A wood decom- 2. Portobello Mushrooms
posing mushroom sometimes found in finger 3. Straw Mushrooms
nails
 Bacteria

Types of Bacteria Biological Warfare

Eubacteria Archbacteria In biological warfare, a nation could

use recombinant DNA by inserting
1. Chemotrophs 1. Methanogens - antibiotics resistant strands into the
CO2 and H2 to cre- organism in use. Furthermore, one
ate CH4 could implant more lethal elements
into a bacteriaʼs DNA, creating a un-
2. Autotrophs 2. Extreme Halo- stoppable attack.
philes - ex-
tremely salty
places

3. Heterotrophs 3. Thermoacido- The Good and the Bad

philes - Hot, acidic
areas
Botox© and Botulism?
Botox is the trademarked name for
botulinum toxin A, which is related to
botulism. The way botox treats wrin-
kles is under the concept that botu-
lism paralyzes muscle and para-
lyzed muscle canʼt form wrinkles.
Other uses of the botulism bacteria
is that of applying it in small
amounts to overactive muscles such
as “crossed eyes” and “uncontrolla-
ble blinking.” Botulinum by itself, is
extremely poisonous as it paralyzes
the respiratory system, causing the
person to not be able to breath.
A type of bacteria culture that has
potential benefit for humans are
called probiotics. The most common
ones are lactic acid bacteria as they
are the ones responsible for cheese
and yogurts. Also, some bacterial
culture lives in our digestive tract
that some claim to help strengthen
the immune system. Other bacteria,
such as TB or typhoid fever, can
cause death is humans.
Biological Warfare
Tuberculosis can become resistant
to antibiotics because of the length
required for a full TB treatment.
Many people stop treatment in the
middle, thus leaving the stronger
ones alive for transmission. This is
the same reason why most bacteria
are gaining resistance to antibiotics.
 Protozoa

Seaweeds, Plantae?
Giant seaweeds are part of the Protista
Kingdom because they lack a specialized
vascular system, such as roots, stems,
leaves and enclosed reproductive structures
like flowers and cones. The discussion over
this classification is controversial is because
seaweeds, like true plants, uses chlorophyll
to go through photosynthetic.

Reproduction
Paramecium usually reproduces asexually
Human Diseases by splitting into two, almost identical organ-
ism. In this type of reproduction, no genetic
Malaria (Plasmodium) material is exchanged and is called “fission.”
Sometimes conditions such as overcrowd-
ing or other stress causes paramecium to
African Sleeping Sickness (Trypano-
reproduce sexually. In a process called con-
soma)
jugation, two paramecium line up side by
Leishmaniasis side, fuse together, and the nucleus divides.
This cause the chromosomes to mix and
cause diversity. The paramecium then made
Toxoplasmosis
go to asexual fission.

Movement
Paramecium movement is propelled
by thousands of little cilia on itʼs body.
On the other hand, Euglena moves by
using a single flagellum. Amoeba
moves using pseudopods; to get food,
the amoeba surrounds the food with
the pseudopods and store it in a
vacuole