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0:00
Hello. My name is Dr.
Primrose Freestone.
I'm an associate professor
in clinical microbiology,
and I'm going to
be talking to you
about bacterial nutrition,
types and modes of
feeding in microorganisms
and why that's important
to life on planet Earth.
0:19
The learning objectives
of this session are,
to understand the basic
requirements of microbial life,
which are energy, carbon
and electron sources,
to understand the four major
nutritional categories
of bacterial nutrition,
chemoautotrophs,
chemoheterotrophs,
photoautotrophs, and
the photochemotrophs.
All of this diversity of
microorganisms contributes to
the very diverse environments
that we have on planet Earth.
0:52
The chemical composition
of the bacterial cell
is largely the same as
that of humans, as well.
It's, generally speaking,
about 80% water
and consists of proteins,
polysaccharides,
things such as sugars,
lipids, nucleic
acids, mucopeptides
and thousands of different low
molecular weight compounds.
These can generally
be divided into
ten nutritional
categories of elements.
Generally speaking, the
proteins, nucleic acids,
and carbohydrates in the
cell are made up of carbon,
oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen,
sulphur, phosphorus,
potassium, calcium,
magnesium and iron.
And these major elements,
which incidentally make
up human cells too,
are supplemented
by small amounts
of general transition
metals such as zinc,
cobalt, molybdenum,
nickel and copper.
What these do is provide
cofactors for enzymes
within the bacterial cell.
