Prokaryote Design by Owen Borville October 17, 2024 Biology 22
Prokaryotes are single-celled organisms that lack a nucleus and other membrane-bound organelles. Established scientists claim that these living organisms are small and simple because they are one of the earliest evolutionary linkages. However, scientists have also found that these organisms are surprisingly complex and are the product of unique intelligent design.
Prokaryotes are very abundant in nature and comprise the majority of living things in all ecosystems. Their total carbon mass is similar to the total carbon mass of plants on Earth. Prokaryotes are most abundant in the open ocean, soil, and oceanic and terrestrial subsurfaces. Prokaryotes recycle nutrients like carbon and nitrogen.
Microbial mats are large biofilms of multiple layers of prokaryotes on moist surfaces only a few centimeters thick and including bacteria and archaea. The microbial mats have a variety of colors because the prokaryotes carry out different metabolic pathways. The prokaryotes are held together in the microbial mat by a sticky glue that they create called extracellular matrix. Microbial mats use energy from chemicals in hydrothermal vents that release geothermally heated waters from inside the earth and also use sunlight from photosynthesis.
Stromatolites are fossilized microbial mats and sedimentary structures formed when minerals are precipitated out of water by prokaryotes in a microbial mat. Stromatolites form layers of carbonate or silicate rock. Stromatolites are still forming in some places and are known as living fossils, casting doubt on the standard evolutionary timeline.
Established scientists believe that the earth was once absent of molecular oxygen, and only organisms that grow without oxygen could survive. These are called anerobic organisms. Cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, then allowed oxygen to accumulate into the earth's atmosphere.
Extremophiles are organisms including bacteria and archaea with the ability to adapt and thrive in extreme environments such as hydrothermal vents. Since they live in “extreme environments” (under high pressure and temperature), they can tell us under which range of conditions life is possible.
Radioresistant organisms are extremophiles that have adapted to high levels of radiation. Some extremophiles have adapted to conditions like low or high pH level, high or low temperature, high salt or sugar concentrations.
Hypersaline environments have high concentrations of sodium and magnesium, like the Dead Sea basin, which is 10 times more concentrated than seawater. Extremely salt-tolerant bacterial mats have adapted to this environment.
Cultured or culturing bacteria is the process of growing bacteria in the laboratory and is considered a great achievement of science. Koch's postulates are a set of four criteria used to determine whether a microorganism is the cause of a disease. The microorganism must be present in every organism with a disease, but not with healthy organisms. The microorganism must be isolated from a diseased organism and grow in a pure culture. The microorganism must be transmissible, where it causes disease in a healthy organism. The microorganism must be reisolated from the organism that it affected and be identified as the same microorganism.
Biofilms are microbial communities, and are part of the environmental ecology and usually grow attached to surfaces. In addition to prokaryotes, fungal biofilms have been found and biofilms with bacteria and fungi mixtures. Biofilms are widely abundant on Earth.
Stages of biofilm development include: bacteria sticking to a solid surface with weak electrical forces between atoms. Hairlike features named pili anchor the bacteria to the surface. Biofilm grows by cell division and bacteria recruitment. Biofilm continues to grow and become more complex. Then the biofilm is partially broken down and some bacteria escape the biofilm and create a new biofilm on another surface.
All cells, including prokaryotes have a plasma membrane cell barrier, the cytoplasm solution of organic molecules and salts, a double-stranded DNA genome, and ribosomes that produce proteins. Many prokaryote cells are: cocci (spherical), bacilli (rod-shaped), and spirilli (spiral-shaped).
The prokaryotic cell contains the nucleoid double stranded DNA, the cell wall and plasma membrane for protection and shape. Some bacteria have an extra capsule protective layer and some also have a flagella for locomotion, in addition to pili for attachment to surfaces. Some bacteria also have an extra chromosomal DNA called a plasmid.
The prokaryotic plasma membrane is a thin lipid bilayer that surrounds the cell and keeps certain ions and molecules out while allowing others in. The cell wall is the protective layer of the cell and produces shape and rigidity, preventing the cell from bursting from increased volume.
Bacterial cell walls contain peptidoglycan polysaccharide chains linked with peptides. Bacteria can be Gram positive or Gram negative structure. Gram-positive organisms typically lack the outer membrane found in Gram-negative organisms. Gram-negative bacteria are surrounded by a thin peptidoglycan cell wall, which itself is surrounded by an outer membrane containing lipopolysaccharide. Gram-positive bacteria lack an outer membrane but are surrounded by layers of peptidoglycan many times thicker than is found in the Gram-negatives.
Archaean cell walls do not have peptidoglycan. There are four different types of archaean cell walls. One type is composed of pseudopeptidoglycan, which is similar to peptidoglycan in morphology but contains different sugars in the polysaccharide chain. The other three types of cell walls are composed of polysaccharides, glycoproteins, or pure protein.
Reproduction in prokaryotes is asexual and usually takes place by binary fission. Prokaryotes don't share genes with binary fission, but can do so in three ways. In transformation, the prokaryote takes in DNA shared by other prokaryotes into its environment. In transduction, bacteriophages, or viruses that affect bacteria, may move short pieces of chromosomal DNA from one bacterium to another, and results in recombination. In conjugation, DNA is transferred from one prokaryote to another by a pilus by way of contact and provides a channel for DNA transfer. While established scientists are unsure about the origin of prokaryotes, the evidence for intelligent design is evident.
Prokaryote metabolism requires nutrients to be able to build all of its biomolecules, and these nutrients are found in the environment. Some nutrients called macronutrients are required in larger amounts than other nutrients. Carbon is the major element in macromolecules, followed by nitrogen, hydrogen, and oxygen. Phosphorus is also essential for all nucleotides and phospholipids. Sulfur is important in some biomolecules. Other important macronutrients are potassium (K), magnesium (Mg), calcium (Ca), and sodium (Na). Some micronutrients are needed in small amounts, including metallic elements.
Prokaryotes obtain energy in several ways. Phototrophic organisms obtain energy from sunlight. Chemotrophic organisms obtain energy from chemical compounds, some of which can use organic compounds and some can use inorganic chemical compounds.
Energy-producing pathways in prokaryotes can be aerobic by way of oxygen as the terminal electron acceptor, or anerobic using inorganic or organic compounds. Prokaryotes obtain carbon in several ways. Autotrophic prokaryotes synthesize organic molecules from carbon dioxide. Heterotrophic prokaryotes obtain carbon from from organic compounds.
Prokaryotes are abundant in all ecosystems and play many roles in the environments of each ecosystem. The carbon cycles the nitrogen cycles are vital to life on Earth.
In the carbon cycle, prokaryotes play an important role. The carbon cycle follows the movement of carbon from inorganic to organic compounds and back again. Carbon is cycled through the Earth's land, atmosphere, waters, sedimentary rocks, and biomass. Carbon dioxide from animals to plants is a major part of this cycle. The carbon cycle includes producers, consumers, and decomposers of organic carbon compounds. The primary producers are plants and photosynthetic bacteria. Consumers such as animals use organic compounds produced by producers and release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Decomposers like bacteria and fungi breakdown plants, animals, and their organic compounds. Another carbon cycle takes place in the waters. Prokaryotes produce methane (CH4), which is oxidized into carbon dioxide (CO2) and returns to the atmosphere.
The nitrogen cycle is important because nitrogen is a major component of proteins and nucleic acids. Nitrogen is recycled from organic compounds to ammonia, ammonium ions, nitrate, nitrite, and nitrogen gas by many processes, many of which are carried out only by prokaryotes. Nitrogen is available in the atmosphere and ammonia in the process of nitrogen fixation where nitrogen is converted or fixed into readily available forms such as ammonia (NH3), which is performed by prokaryotic bacteria.
Another ammonia source is ammonification, when ammonia is released during the decomposition of nitrogen-containing organic compounds. The ammonium ion is oxidized by different bacteria during nitrification, from ammonia (NH4+) to nitrite (NO2-) to nitrate (NO3-).
Bacterial diseases in humans include pathogens, which are bacteria or infectious agents that cause harm to their human hosts. Epidemics are diseases that occur among a high number of individuals in a population at the same time. A pandemic is a widespread epidemic. An endemic disease is always present in a population at a low rate.
Infectious diseases have been recorded throughout human history. Plagues like the bubonic plagues have taken many lives, but antibiotics have been developed to fight these plagues and today the casualty rate is low. As humans have migrated or travelled throughout history, plagues have been spread throughout the world.
An emerging disease is a disease that has appeared in a population for the first time. Re-emerging diseases are those that re-appear after being absent for a while. Diseases that primarily affect animals but can affect humans are called zoonoses and these are of viral or bacterial origin.
Prokaryotes are abundant worldwide, and therefore the food supply can contain prokaryotes that cause disease outbreaks. Biofilms can also contain harmful prokaryotes and are difficult to destroy when they grow on surfaces in the human body.
Antibiotic drugs that have been produced by the medical field that stop the growth of harmful organisms. These antibiotic drugs have become in some cases obsolete as some bacteria have become resistant to the antibiotic drugs. Therefore, in addition to the development of antibiotic drugs for medicine, these drugs must be produced so that organisms are not or do not become resistant to them. Some strains of bacteria can become resistant to antibiotic drugs.
Some prokaryotic bacteria can be beneficial to humans and the environment. Biological nitrogen fixation (BNF) is exclusively carried out by prokaryotes such as soil bacteria, cyanobacteria, and Frankia spp. (filamentous bacteria interacting with actinorhizal plants such as alder, bayberry, and sweet fern). In addition to photosynthesis, BNF is one of the most the most important biological process on Earth.
Cyanobacteria are the most important nitrogen fixers in aquatic environments while other bacteria are known for nitrogen fixing in the soils. Other bacteria provide nitrogen to plants in symbiotic relationships. Soil bacteria help plants have access to nitrogen fixation in symbiotic relationships by forming nodules.
Symbiotic nitrogen fixation provides natural plant fertilizer by reducing atmospheric nitrogen to ammonia, which can be used by plants and in sustainable agriculture to minimize the use of artificial chemical fertilizers. Some microbes can help the human body during digestive processes and on the skin.
Biotechnology is the use of technology with biological systems or organisms to produce or modify products or processes for a particular use. Prokaryotes and bacteria have been used to produce foods, such as cheese, bread, and yogurt.
Some prokaryotes have been used to clean the environment by way of microbial bioremediation to remove pollutants from the environment. These include removing agricultural chemicals from soil, groundwater, and the subsurface. Toxic metals and oxides can be removed from water using bioremediation. Bioremediation has been used to clean up oil spills in the oceans, as bacteria can help decompose the hydrocarbons.
Prokaryotes are single-celled organisms that lack a nucleus and other membrane-bound organelles. Established scientists claim that these living organisms are small and simple because they are one of the earliest evolutionary linkages. However, scientists have also found that these organisms are surprisingly complex and are the product of unique intelligent design.
Prokaryotes are very abundant in nature and comprise the majority of living things in all ecosystems. Their total carbon mass is similar to the total carbon mass of plants on Earth. Prokaryotes are most abundant in the open ocean, soil, and oceanic and terrestrial subsurfaces. Prokaryotes recycle nutrients like carbon and nitrogen.
Microbial mats are large biofilms of multiple layers of prokaryotes on moist surfaces only a few centimeters thick and including bacteria and archaea. The microbial mats have a variety of colors because the prokaryotes carry out different metabolic pathways. The prokaryotes are held together in the microbial mat by a sticky glue that they create called extracellular matrix. Microbial mats use energy from chemicals in hydrothermal vents that release geothermally heated waters from inside the earth and also use sunlight from photosynthesis.
Stromatolites are fossilized microbial mats and sedimentary structures formed when minerals are precipitated out of water by prokaryotes in a microbial mat. Stromatolites form layers of carbonate or silicate rock. Stromatolites are still forming in some places and are known as living fossils, casting doubt on the standard evolutionary timeline.
Established scientists believe that the earth was once absent of molecular oxygen, and only organisms that grow without oxygen could survive. These are called anerobic organisms. Cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, then allowed oxygen to accumulate into the earth's atmosphere.
Extremophiles are organisms including bacteria and archaea with the ability to adapt and thrive in extreme environments such as hydrothermal vents. Since they live in “extreme environments” (under high pressure and temperature), they can tell us under which range of conditions life is possible.
Radioresistant organisms are extremophiles that have adapted to high levels of radiation. Some extremophiles have adapted to conditions like low or high pH level, high or low temperature, high salt or sugar concentrations.
Hypersaline environments have high concentrations of sodium and magnesium, like the Dead Sea basin, which is 10 times more concentrated than seawater. Extremely salt-tolerant bacterial mats have adapted to this environment.
Cultured or culturing bacteria is the process of growing bacteria in the laboratory and is considered a great achievement of science. Koch's postulates are a set of four criteria used to determine whether a microorganism is the cause of a disease. The microorganism must be present in every organism with a disease, but not with healthy organisms. The microorganism must be isolated from a diseased organism and grow in a pure culture. The microorganism must be transmissible, where it causes disease in a healthy organism. The microorganism must be reisolated from the organism that it affected and be identified as the same microorganism.
Biofilms are microbial communities, and are part of the environmental ecology and usually grow attached to surfaces. In addition to prokaryotes, fungal biofilms have been found and biofilms with bacteria and fungi mixtures. Biofilms are widely abundant on Earth.
Stages of biofilm development include: bacteria sticking to a solid surface with weak electrical forces between atoms. Hairlike features named pili anchor the bacteria to the surface. Biofilm grows by cell division and bacteria recruitment. Biofilm continues to grow and become more complex. Then the biofilm is partially broken down and some bacteria escape the biofilm and create a new biofilm on another surface.
All cells, including prokaryotes have a plasma membrane cell barrier, the cytoplasm solution of organic molecules and salts, a double-stranded DNA genome, and ribosomes that produce proteins. Many prokaryote cells are: cocci (spherical), bacilli (rod-shaped), and spirilli (spiral-shaped).
The prokaryotic cell contains the nucleoid double stranded DNA, the cell wall and plasma membrane for protection and shape. Some bacteria have an extra capsule protective layer and some also have a flagella for locomotion, in addition to pili for attachment to surfaces. Some bacteria also have an extra chromosomal DNA called a plasmid.
The prokaryotic plasma membrane is a thin lipid bilayer that surrounds the cell and keeps certain ions and molecules out while allowing others in. The cell wall is the protective layer of the cell and produces shape and rigidity, preventing the cell from bursting from increased volume.
Bacterial cell walls contain peptidoglycan polysaccharide chains linked with peptides. Bacteria can be Gram positive or Gram negative structure. Gram-positive organisms typically lack the outer membrane found in Gram-negative organisms. Gram-negative bacteria are surrounded by a thin peptidoglycan cell wall, which itself is surrounded by an outer membrane containing lipopolysaccharide. Gram-positive bacteria lack an outer membrane but are surrounded by layers of peptidoglycan many times thicker than is found in the Gram-negatives.
Archaean cell walls do not have peptidoglycan. There are four different types of archaean cell walls. One type is composed of pseudopeptidoglycan, which is similar to peptidoglycan in morphology but contains different sugars in the polysaccharide chain. The other three types of cell walls are composed of polysaccharides, glycoproteins, or pure protein.
Reproduction in prokaryotes is asexual and usually takes place by binary fission. Prokaryotes don't share genes with binary fission, but can do so in three ways. In transformation, the prokaryote takes in DNA shared by other prokaryotes into its environment. In transduction, bacteriophages, or viruses that affect bacteria, may move short pieces of chromosomal DNA from one bacterium to another, and results in recombination. In conjugation, DNA is transferred from one prokaryote to another by a pilus by way of contact and provides a channel for DNA transfer. While established scientists are unsure about the origin of prokaryotes, the evidence for intelligent design is evident.
Prokaryote metabolism requires nutrients to be able to build all of its biomolecules, and these nutrients are found in the environment. Some nutrients called macronutrients are required in larger amounts than other nutrients. Carbon is the major element in macromolecules, followed by nitrogen, hydrogen, and oxygen. Phosphorus is also essential for all nucleotides and phospholipids. Sulfur is important in some biomolecules. Other important macronutrients are potassium (K), magnesium (Mg), calcium (Ca), and sodium (Na). Some micronutrients are needed in small amounts, including metallic elements.
Prokaryotes obtain energy in several ways. Phototrophic organisms obtain energy from sunlight. Chemotrophic organisms obtain energy from chemical compounds, some of which can use organic compounds and some can use inorganic chemical compounds.
Energy-producing pathways in prokaryotes can be aerobic by way of oxygen as the terminal electron acceptor, or anerobic using inorganic or organic compounds. Prokaryotes obtain carbon in several ways. Autotrophic prokaryotes synthesize organic molecules from carbon dioxide. Heterotrophic prokaryotes obtain carbon from from organic compounds.
Prokaryotes are abundant in all ecosystems and play many roles in the environments of each ecosystem. The carbon cycles the nitrogen cycles are vital to life on Earth.
In the carbon cycle, prokaryotes play an important role. The carbon cycle follows the movement of carbon from inorganic to organic compounds and back again. Carbon is cycled through the Earth's land, atmosphere, waters, sedimentary rocks, and biomass. Carbon dioxide from animals to plants is a major part of this cycle. The carbon cycle includes producers, consumers, and decomposers of organic carbon compounds. The primary producers are plants and photosynthetic bacteria. Consumers such as animals use organic compounds produced by producers and release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Decomposers like bacteria and fungi breakdown plants, animals, and their organic compounds. Another carbon cycle takes place in the waters. Prokaryotes produce methane (CH4), which is oxidized into carbon dioxide (CO2) and returns to the atmosphere.
The nitrogen cycle is important because nitrogen is a major component of proteins and nucleic acids. Nitrogen is recycled from organic compounds to ammonia, ammonium ions, nitrate, nitrite, and nitrogen gas by many processes, many of which are carried out only by prokaryotes. Nitrogen is available in the atmosphere and ammonia in the process of nitrogen fixation where nitrogen is converted or fixed into readily available forms such as ammonia (NH3), which is performed by prokaryotic bacteria.
Another ammonia source is ammonification, when ammonia is released during the decomposition of nitrogen-containing organic compounds. The ammonium ion is oxidized by different bacteria during nitrification, from ammonia (NH4+) to nitrite (NO2-) to nitrate (NO3-).
Bacterial diseases in humans include pathogens, which are bacteria or infectious agents that cause harm to their human hosts. Epidemics are diseases that occur among a high number of individuals in a population at the same time. A pandemic is a widespread epidemic. An endemic disease is always present in a population at a low rate.
Infectious diseases have been recorded throughout human history. Plagues like the bubonic plagues have taken many lives, but antibiotics have been developed to fight these plagues and today the casualty rate is low. As humans have migrated or travelled throughout history, plagues have been spread throughout the world.
An emerging disease is a disease that has appeared in a population for the first time. Re-emerging diseases are those that re-appear after being absent for a while. Diseases that primarily affect animals but can affect humans are called zoonoses and these are of viral or bacterial origin.
Prokaryotes are abundant worldwide, and therefore the food supply can contain prokaryotes that cause disease outbreaks. Biofilms can also contain harmful prokaryotes and are difficult to destroy when they grow on surfaces in the human body.
Antibiotic drugs that have been produced by the medical field that stop the growth of harmful organisms. These antibiotic drugs have become in some cases obsolete as some bacteria have become resistant to the antibiotic drugs. Therefore, in addition to the development of antibiotic drugs for medicine, these drugs must be produced so that organisms are not or do not become resistant to them. Some strains of bacteria can become resistant to antibiotic drugs.
Some prokaryotic bacteria can be beneficial to humans and the environment. Biological nitrogen fixation (BNF) is exclusively carried out by prokaryotes such as soil bacteria, cyanobacteria, and Frankia spp. (filamentous bacteria interacting with actinorhizal plants such as alder, bayberry, and sweet fern). In addition to photosynthesis, BNF is one of the most the most important biological process on Earth.
Cyanobacteria are the most important nitrogen fixers in aquatic environments while other bacteria are known for nitrogen fixing in the soils. Other bacteria provide nitrogen to plants in symbiotic relationships. Soil bacteria help plants have access to nitrogen fixation in symbiotic relationships by forming nodules.
Symbiotic nitrogen fixation provides natural plant fertilizer by reducing atmospheric nitrogen to ammonia, which can be used by plants and in sustainable agriculture to minimize the use of artificial chemical fertilizers. Some microbes can help the human body during digestive processes and on the skin.
Biotechnology is the use of technology with biological systems or organisms to produce or modify products or processes for a particular use. Prokaryotes and bacteria have been used to produce foods, such as cheese, bread, and yogurt.
Some prokaryotes have been used to clean the environment by way of microbial bioremediation to remove pollutants from the environment. These include removing agricultural chemicals from soil, groundwater, and the subsurface. Toxic metals and oxides can be removed from water using bioremediation. Bioremediation has been used to clean up oil spills in the oceans, as bacteria can help decompose the hydrocarbons.