Microbial synergy is a phenomenon in which aerobic and anaerobic microbes support each other's growth and proliferation. In this process aerobes invade and destroy host tissues, reduce tissue oxygen concentration and redox potential, thus creating favorable conditions for anaerobic growth and proliferation. Anaerobes grow and produce short chain fatty acids such as butyric acid, propionic acid. These short chain fatty acids inhibit phagocytosis of aerobes. Thus aerobes grow, proliferate and destroy more tissues. Microbial synergy complicates and delays the healing of surgical and other chronic wounds or ulcers such as diabetic foot ulcers, venous ulcers, pressure ulcers[1][2] etc. Microbial synergy also helps with eliminating oxygen redox. This allows the growth of organisms without the effects of oxygen reacting negatively. As a result, Microbial growth increases because other organisms can grow in the absence of Oxygen redox.
An anaerobic organism or anaerobe is any organism that does not require oxygen for growth. It may react negatively or even die if free oxygen is present. (In contrast, an aerobic organism is an organism that requires an oxygenated environment. Anaerobes may be unicellular or multicellular.
In chemistry, particularly in biochemistry, a fatty acid is a carboxylic acid with a long aliphatic chain, which is either saturated or unsaturated. Most naturally occurring fatty acids have an unbranched chain of an even number of carbon atoms, from 4 to 28. Fatty acids are usually not found in organisms, but instead as three main classes of esters: triglycerides, phospholipids, and cholesterol esters. In any of these forms, fatty acids are both important dietary sources of fuel for animals and they are important structural components for cells.
Butyric acid (from Ancient Greek: βούτῡρον, meaning "butter"), also known under the systematic name butanoic acid, is a carboxylic acid with the structural formula CH3CH2CH2-COOH. Salts and esters of butyric acid are known as butyrates or butanoates. Butyric acid is found in animal fat and plant oils, bovine milk, breast milk, butter, parmesan cheese, and as a product of anaerobic fermentation (including in the colon and as body odor). Butyric acid has a taste somewhat like butter and an unpleasant odor. Mammals with good scent detection abilities, such as dogs, can detect it at 10 parts per billion, whereas humans can only detect it in concentrations above 10 parts per million. In food manufacturing, it is used as a flavoring agent.
Related Research Articles
Brain abscess is an abscess caused by inflammation and collection of infected material, coming from local or remote infectious sources, within the brain tissue. The infection may also be introduced through a skull fracture following a head trauma or surgical procedures. Brain abscess is usually associated with congenital heart disease in young children. It may occur at any age but is most frequent in the third decade of life.
Infection is the invasion of an organism's body tissues by disease-causing agents, their multiplication, and the reaction of host tissues to the infectious agents and the toxins they produce. Infectious disease, also known as transmissible disease or communicable disease, is illness resulting from an infection.
Koch's postulates are four criteria designed to establish a causative relationship between a microbe and a disease. The postulates were formulated by Robert Koch and Friedrich Loeffler in 1884, based on earlier concepts described by Jakob Henle, and refined and published by Koch in 1890. Koch applied the postulates to describe the etiology of cholera and tuberculosis, but they have been controversially generalized to other diseases. These postulates were generated prior to understanding of modern concepts in microbial pathogenesis that cannot be examined using Koch's postulates, including viruses or asymptomatic carriers. They have largely been supplanted by other criteria such as the Bradford Hill criteria for infectious disease causality in modern public health.
Gangrene is a type of tissue death caused by a lack of blood supply. Symptoms may include a change in skin color to red or black, numbness, swelling, pain, skin breakdown, and coolness. The feet and hands are most commonly affected. Certain types may present with a fever or sepsis.
Obligate anaerobes are microorganisms killed by normal atmospheric concentrations of oxygen (20.95% O2). Oxygen tolerance varies between species, some capable of surviving in up to 8% oxygen, others losing viability unless the oxygen concentration is less than 0.5%. An important distinction needs to be made here between the obligate anaerobes and the microaerophiles. Microaerophiles, like the obligate anaerobes, are damaged by normal atmospheric concentrations of oxygen. However, microaerophiles metabolise energy aerobically, and obligate anaerobes metabolise energy anaerobically. Microaerophiles therefore require oxygen (typically 2–10% O2) for growth. Obligate anaerobes do not.
Actinomycosis is a rare infectious bacterial disease caused by Actinomyces species. About 70% of infections are due to either Actinomyces israelii or A. gerencseriae. Infection can also be caused by other Actinomyces species, as well as Propionibacterium propionicus, which presents similar symptoms. The condition is likely to be polymicrobial aerobic anaerobic infection.
Dental plaque is a biofilm or mass of bacteria that grows on surfaces within the mouth. It is a sticky colorless deposit at first, but when it forms tartar, it is often brown or pale yellow. It is commonly found between the teeth, on the front of teeth, behind teeth, on chewing surfaces, along the gumline, or below the gumline cervical margins. Dental plaque is also known as microbial plaque, oral biofilm, dental biofilm, dental plaque biofilm or bacterial plaque biofilm. Bacterial plaque is one of the major causes for dental decay and gum disease.
The innate immune system is one of the two main immunity strategies found in vertebrates. The innate immune system is an older evolutionary defense strategy, relatively speaking, and it is the dominant immune system response found in plants, fungi, insects, and primitive multicellular organisms.
A chronic wound is a wound that does not heal in an orderly set of stages and in a predictable amount of time the way most wounds do; wounds that do not heal within three months are often considered chronic. Chronic wounds seem to be detained in one or more of the phases of wound healing. For example, chronic wounds often remain in the inflammatory stage for too long. To overcome that stage and jump-start the healing process a number of factors need to be addressed such as bacterial burden, necrotic tissue, and moisture balance of the whole wound. In acute wounds, there is a precise balance between production and degradation of molecules such as collagen; in chronic wounds this balance is lost and degradation plays too large a role.
Peptostreptococcus is a genus of anaerobic, Gram-positive, non-spore forming bacteria. The cells are small, spherical, and can occur in short chains, in pairs or individually. They typically move using cilia. Peptostreptococcus are slow-growing bacteria with increasing resistance to antimicrobial drugs. Peptostreptococcus is a normal inhabitant of the healthy lower reproductive tract of women.
Microbial metabolism is the means by which a microbe obtains the energy and nutrients it needs to live and reproduce. Microbes use many different types of metabolic strategies and species can often be differentiated from each other based on metabolic characteristics. The specific metabolic properties of a microbe are the major factors in determining that microbe's ecological niche, and often allow for that microbe to be useful in industrial processes or responsible for biogeochemical cycles.
Syntrophy, synthrophy, cross-feeding, or cross feeding [Greek syn meaning together, trophe meaning nourishment] is the phenomenon that one species lives off the products of another species. In this association, the growth of one partner is improved, or depends on the nutrients, growth factors or substrate provided by the other partner. Jan Dolfing described syntrophy as "the critical interdependency between producer and consumer". This term for nutritional interdependence is often used in microbiology to describe this symbiotic relationship between bacterial species. Morris et al. have described the process as "obligately mutualistic metabolism".
Medical microbiology , the large subset of microbiology that is applied to medicine, is a branch of medical science concerned with the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of infectious diseases. In addition, this field of science studies various clinical applications of microbes for the improvement of health. There are four kinds of microorganisms that cause infectious disease: bacteria, fungi, parasites and viruses, and one type of infectious protein called prion.
Thioglycolate broth is a multipurpose, enriched, differential medium used primarily to determine the oxygen requirements of microorganisms. Sodium thioglycolate in the medium consumes oxygen and permits the growth of obligate anaerobes. This, combined with the diffusion of oxygen from the top of the broth, produces a range of oxygen concentrations in the medium along its depth. The oxygen concentration at a given level is indicated by a redox-sensitive dye such as resazurine that turns pink in the presence of oxygen.
Tropical ulcer, more commonly known as jungle rot, is a chronic ulcerative skin lesion thought to be caused by polymicrobial infection with a variety of microorganisms, including mycobacteria. It is common in tropical climates.
Acute infectious thyroiditis (AIT) also known as suppurative thyroiditis, microbial inflammatory thyroiditis, pyrogenic thyroiditis and bacterial thyroiditis.
A skin and skin structure infection (SSSI), also referred to as skin and soft tissue infection (SSTI) or acute bacterial skin and skin structure infection (ABSSSI), is an infection of skin and associated soft tissues. The pathogen involved is usually a bacterial species. Such infections often requires treatment by antibiotics.
Anaerobic infections are caused by anaerobic bacteria. Obligately anaerobic bacteria do not grow on solid media in room air ; facultatively anaerobic bacteria can grow in the presence or absence of air. Microaerophilic bacteria do not grow at all aerobically or grow poorly, but grow better under 10% carbon dioxide or anaerobically. Anaerobic bacteria can be divided into strict anaerobes that can not grow in the presence of more than 0.5% oxygen and moderate anaerobic bacteria that are able of growing between 2 and 8% oxygen. Anaerobic bacteria usually do not possess catalase, but some can generate superoxide dismutase which protects them from oxygen.
Soil microbiology is the study of microorganisms in soil, their functions, and how they affect soil properties. It is believed that between two and four billion years ago, the first ancient bacteria and microorganisms came about on Earth's oceans. These bacteria could fix nitrogen, in time multiplied, and as a result released oxygen into the atmosphere. This led to more advanced microorganisms, which are important because they affect soil structure and fertility. Soil microorganisms can be classified as bacteria, actinomycetes, fungi, algae and protozoa. Each of these groups has characteristics that define them and their functions in soil.
References
↑ Rotstein, OD; Pruett, TL; Simmons, RL (1984). "Mechanisms of microbial synergy in polymicrobial surgical infections". Reviews of infectious diseases. 7 (2): 151–70. doi:10.1093/clinids/7.2.151. PMID3890095.
↑ Eftimiadi, C; Tonetti, M; Cavallero, A; Sacco, O; Rossi, GA (January 1990). "Short-chain fatty acids produced by anaerobic bacteria inhibit phagocytosis by human lung phagocytes". The Journal of Infectious Diseases. 161 (1): 138–42. doi:10.1093/infdis/161.1.138. PMID2295846.
Rotstein, O. D., T. L. Pruett, and R. L. Simmons. "Mechanisms of Microbial Synergy in Polymicrobial Surgical Infections." Reviews of Infectious Diseases. U.S. National Library of Medicine, n.d. Web. 19 Apr. 2017.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
