Pacterial Pathogenesis

An exotoxin is a soluble protein excreted by a microorganism and can cause damage to the host by destroying cells or disrupting normal cellular metabolism. Both gram negative and gram positive bacteria produce exotoxins. Most exotoxins can be destroyed by heating. Some examples include botulinum toxin produced by Clostridium botulinum, the Corynebacterium diphtheriae exotoxin which is produced during life threatening symptoms of diphtheria. Click here to learn about diptheria. What are some of the symptoms of diptheria? 1. _______________________ 2. _______________________ What organs are affected by the dipteria exotoxin? 1. _______________________ 2. _______________________ 3. _______________________ What is so interesting about the disease is that only bacteria that contain a bacteriophage can cause the disease. Microbiological diagnosis involves isolation of Corynebacterium diphtheriae on a selective medium such as Hoyle's medium containing potassium tellurite. What color does the colony form overnight? 1. _______________________ Endotoxins are toxic components of the outer membrane of some gram negative bacteria. They all characteristically cause fever and aches. Examples include Salmonella thypi which causes typhoid fever. About 50% of all human diseases are caused by bacteria. These pathogens must invade the host and then evade the hosts immune defenses in order to grow and thrive. Some bacteria ordinarily are found on the host but it is only when the hosts immune system fails that they become pathogenic. These
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organisms are said to be opportunistic.

The USDA Food and Drug Administration has a web site where they publish the Bad Bug Book Click on this site and study the list of pathogenic organisms. In the space below Click on Clostridium botulinum In the space provided first describe the nature of the microbe. How does it stain/ Does it produces spores? Etc. Next, describe the toxin and its mode of action? What is the name of the disease caused by this microbe? ____________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________ Now click on Shigella spp. and give a similar overview of this organism. ____________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________ Feel free to check out other pathogens. By the late 1800 microbiologists like Louis Pasteur and John Lister began to link disease to pathogenic microbes. However, it was Robert Koch who was the first to determine a definitive link between a specific organism and certain diseases. Koch identified the microbe responsible for tuberculosis (Mycobacterium tuberculosi), as well as the pathogenic agent of anthrax (Bacillus anthracis). Aside: Tuberculosis (abbreviated as TB for tubercle bacillus or Tuberculosis) is a common and deadly infectious disease caused by mycobacteria, mainly Mycobacterium tuberculosis. One third of the world's current population has been infected by TB, and new infections occur at a rate
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of one per second. World Health Organization (WHO). Tuberculosis Fact sheet N104 Global and regional incidence. March 2006, Retrieved on 6 October 2006.
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs104/en/index.html

Anthrax is an acute disease in humans and animals caused by the bacterium Bacillus anthracis which is highly lethal in some forms. Koch established guidelines or four criteria which are known today as Kochs postulates. 1. Find the same organism in each diseased individual. 2. Isolate the pathogen from one diseased individual and grow it in a pure culture. 3.Use this cultured pathogen to induce the disease in a healthy experimental animal (implying its import to do controls) 4. Isolate the organism from the newly infected experimental animal. Review /Food for thought What is a pathogen? ________________________________ What is meant by an opportunistic organism? ________________________________ Distinguish between an exotoxin and an endotoxin. Give an example of each. ________________________________ ________________________________ ________________________________ What kind of a molecule is an exotoxin? ________________________________ What are the usual symptoms of an endotoxin? ________________________________ What is the agent of tuberculosis?
Summer 2008 Workshop in Biology and Multimedia for High School Teachers Harvard University Life Sciences HHMI Outreach Program

________________________________ What is the agent of anthrax? ________________________________

List Kochs postulates that are used to substantiate a specific pathogen as the cause of a disease? ________________________________ ________________________________ ________________________________ ________________________________ Can you think of a difficulty that arises in applying Kochs postulates to human pathogens? ________________________________ ________________________________ ________________________________ ________________________________ ________________________________ ________________________________

Summer 2008 Workshop in Biology and Multimedia for High School Teachers Harvard University Life Sciences HHMI Outreach Program