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Lastly how big will you expect the organism in the posture shown above will be?

ID: 277115 • Letter: L

Question

Lastly how big will you expect the organism in the posture shown above will be? In um 37) Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif NEWS RELEASE: Janaary 15, 2006 NASA's Comet Tale Draws to a Successful Close in Utah Desert NASAs Stardust sample return mission returned safely to Earth when the capsule carrying cometary and interstellar particles successfully touched down at 2:10 a.m. Samples from this probe were rushed to several laboratories for testing Initial observations on these samples indicated that they coetained particles that appeared to be bacterial endospores You are excited to be part of this historic event. As one of the staff Microbiologists at NASA, it will be your job to determine if the iterstellar particles returned by the Stardust probe contain viable microorganisms. Your first job is to prepare culture media. You have the following list of chemicals from which to make your media Fructose; Citrae; Polyurethane, Yeast Extract; NH,H PO, NaC1, MgsO KH, POg KOH HSO, NH,C MgCl, agar and water 2 pts. Which compounds would you choose to make a rich medium (broth) [RM medial (Using the minimam namber of components)? 2 pts. How could you modify this medium to make it a simple defined medium that coald be used to determine if this micreorganism could use the TCA cyele te generate emergy ISDM medial 2 pts Some preliminary analysis showed that when this organism is growing in SDM, it uses 3 ATP molecules to transport the energy source. You bypothesize that the organisms has a functional electron transport chain. When you incubate the stardust on SDM modia under anacobic conditions, you find that the organism grows. Explain why this supports the hypothesis? 2 pts You look under a light microscope at 100 X (oil) magnification and see the tollowing How would you describe the morphology of individual bacteria in this picture?

Explanation / Answer

1)

The microorganisms extracted from the space dust can be grown on simple undefined media like Luria broth.From the available ingredients , medium is formulated by using fructose, Yeast extract ,NaCl,water .where fructose serves as a carbohydrate souce ,yeast extract as source of vitamins and minerals ,NaCl as salt and water.

2)

Addition of Citrate,NH2H2PO4,Mgso4,Agar, and deletion of fructose and yeast extract to the above medium makes it as a defined medium for the isolation of organisms that use TCA cycle to generate energy.Citrate is used as a sole source of energy ,ammonium dihydrogen phosphate as source of nitrogen ,Nacl to maintain osmotic balance,Mgso4 as co factor for metabolic reactions.

3)  

Because some anaerobic organisms use sulfate,nitrate etc as the a terminal electron acceptor.

4)

The bacteria in the slide can be defined as a rod shapped bacteria in chains.The organisms were stained both purple (Gram positive) and pink( gram negative).so, the bactreria can be defined as Streptobacilli .