Advance Paper-II Paper IV: Microbiology

UNITS

TOPICS

TEACHING HOURS

Unit I

TAXONOMY :                                                                                                     

Microbial evolution, systematic and taxonomy-Evolution of earth and earliest life forms; primitive organisms, their metabolic strategies and molecular coding; approaches to bacterial taxonomy, DNA-DNA and DNA-RNA hybridization, G+C content determination, ribotyping, Ribosomal RNA sequencing; Characteristics of primary domains, Taxonomy, Nomenclature and Bergey's Manual. Culture collection, maintenance and preservation of microorganisms.

12

Unit II

EXTREMOPHILES

Hyperthermophiles, halophiles halophilic thermophiles.

Heat, cold and deep sea adaptations. Exploitation of extremophiles in medicine, agriculture and industries

12

Unit III

DETECTION, ENUMERATION AND IDENTIFICATION OF MICROBES :

Environmental sample collection and processing. Microscopic techniques: Fluororescence (direct count, fluorescent  immunolabelling, FISH . Electro Microscopy: Scanning Transmission, elemental analysis), Confocal Laser scanning  microscopy, Scanning Probe microscopy ( atomic force microscopy), flow cytometry

Culture methods: isolation and enumeration of bacteria, media for bacteria, culture methods of algae, fungi and viruses.

Physiological methods: carbon respiration, incorporation of radiolabelled traces  into cellular macromolecules, adenylate energy charges, enzyme assays stable isotope probing, functional genomics and proteomics –based approaches

12

Unit IV

AQUATIC MICROBIOLOGY 

Microbial habitats in aquatic environments (planktonic, Benthic, microbial mats, biofilms).Aquatic environments; (fresh water, brackish water, marine water, subterranean).

12

Unit V

SOIL MICROBIOLOGY:

Micro flora of various soil types, Culture methods for enumeration of soil microorganisms, physiochemical characteristics, soil as a microbial environment microorganism in surface soil, shallow & in the deep subsurface.

12