Lecture 2

- Stromatolite like structures that are covered with photosynthetic cyanobacteria,

- Oxygenic photosynthesis, through photosynthetic cyanobacteria in the early Earth
help accumulate oxygen
- 3.5BYO, wide scale photosynthesis occurring
- Oxygen capturing the oxygen (iron bands)
- Ocean saturated, no longer reacting. Leaving the ocean and building into the
atmosphere ‘great oxygenation event), occurring 2.4BYO, continuing for 2B years
- Solar radiation was splitting the oxygen, free oxygen - highly reactive reacting with
O2, creating the ozone to protect the Earth from UV rays. That is how organisms
were able to leave the ocean and inhabit land
- Evolution of aerobic respiration to fuel the cambrian explosion - complex multicellular
organisms
- Catastrophe? → wiped out a lot of organisms that thrived in an atmosphere without
oxygen

- Eukaryotes are much larger than prokaryotic cells

- Compartmentalised in eukaryotic cell (e.g. nucleus)
- Everything in the prokaryotic cell is free floating

Prokaryotic Cell
- Semi-rigid cell wall to provide structure and protection to the cell
- Peptidoglycan cell wall
- Cytosol, the aqueous portion of cell, liquid within the cell
- Ribosomes, protein synthesis
- Young cells are metabolically active
- Nucleoid, double stranded loop of DNA, chief characteristic, not compartmentalised
- Ribosomes can immediately translate
- Cytoplasm includes
- Transferring genetic information between cells
- Small circular DNA called plasmids, swapping back and forth - evolving resistance to
an antibiotic, suddenly every cell is resistant
- Flagellum, rotating propelling
through the environment, not
all prokaryotes have a
flagellum - comprised of a
single protein
- Outer capsule, layer which
goes around the whole cell,
composed of branched
sugars. In bacteria, this is
important for virulence,
allowing the bacteria to get
into the host and set up for
infection
- Can allow bacteria to get into
organisms and divide
- Allow bacteria to survive in stressful environments, survive dessication* by holding
onto water
- Single cell in the environment, mucilage secreted occasionally (does not meet the
definition of multicellular), maybe during a stressful time
Traits
- Very small, much smaller than eukaryotic cells
- Range from 1-10 microns
- Resting spores, endospores, resting structures that get produces and allow the cell to
wait out tough times and grow again when the conditions are favourable. Can lay
dormant for thousands of years.
- Divide rapidly,simple cell structure that allows a fast division, every 20 mins
- Highly evolved, adapted to almost every niche on Earth, very diverse
- Flagellin, the protein that comprises the flagellum, rotates by the motor to generate
movement (prokaryotes)
- Binary fission, a form of cytokinesis that prokaryotes use
- Ribosomes independently assorted

Prokaryotes
Two of the three domains of life are Prokaryotes
• the Bacteria (previously the Eubacteria)
• the Archaea (previously the Archaeobacteria)
The Archaea are more closely related to the third domain of Eukarya, or Eukaryotes
Original Archaea were found In extreme environments
How do Archaea differ from Bacteria?
• Morphologically they don’t
• Over half of Archaean genes were new to science
• Comparison of nucleic acid sequences allows us to construct phylogenetic trees
• Biochemically, Archaea are nearly as different from Bacteria as they are from Eukarya
(making them a separate domain)

How do Archaea differ from Bacteria?

• The two central biological processes in Archaea, genetic transcription and translation, are
more similar to those of eukaryotes than bacteria.
• Features of the Archaean lipids and their membranes are unusual and Archaea lack a
peptidoglycan wall.
• Most Archaea were believed to be extremophiles (hot, cold, acidic, alkaline, highly saline,
extreme pressure etc.), but are now known to be found in many environments.
• Archaea have not been found to produce resting spores.
• As of 2018, no clear examples of Archaean pathogens are known

Prokaryotes
• Ubiquitous and metabolically diverse
• Cause of many diseases
• Decomposers and recyclers
• Agents in industrial and agricultural processes
• Biotech applications
• Include the Cyanobacteria - major primary producers

Summary of Lecture:
1. Prokaryotic vs Eukaryotic cells: As stated in the notes from lecture #1, the greatest
division amongst organisms is between those cells that have nuclei (said to be eukaryotic)
and those that lack nuclei (or prokaryotic). Of all cells, ONLY Bacteria and Archaea have
prokaryotic structure, and these two domains are very different from one another.

2. Origin of Eukaryotic cells from Prokaryotic Cells? We have an idea of when

prokaryotic cells first arose from the fossil record, but the origin of eukaryotic cells is less
well understood. Evolution theory states that eukaryotic cells evolved from prokaryotic cells.

3. Prokaryotic Cells: There are two domains of prokaryotes, the Bacteria (including the
cyanobacteria) and Archaea, or simplest of cells. We have only just begun to understand the
Archaea. Prokaryotic cell structure is very simple, and is illustrated in the lecture and in your
book. The cell structure consists of a semi-rigid cell wall surrounding cytoplasm containing a
single, circular DNA in an area called the nucleoid, and a few hundred to few thousand
ribosomes. When present, flagella are simple in structure when compared to eukaryotes.
Bacterial flagella are extracellular and composed of flagellin. Prokaryotic reproduction is by
simple binary fission.

There are a large number of bacteria, ubiquitous microorganisms (l-l0 µm) that are very
important in the environment for the decomposition of organic matter and to recycle
nutrients. Bacteria are also the major cause of disease (e.g., typhoid, cholera, dysentery, TB,
plague, gangrene, VD, tetanus, pneumonia, Legionnaire's) and vital in food production (e.g.,
cheese, yogurt, sour cream, sauerkraut, vinegar, citric acid). Most bacteria are heterotrophic,
some are able to photosynthesize (photoautotrophs), some are able to oxidize inorganic
compounds and harvest energy (chemoautotrophs) and some are able to fix nitrogen from
air (important source of green "fertilizer").

How do Archaea differ from Bacteria

• Morphologically they don't (e.g. they look the same).
• Over half of Archaean genes were new to science when they were first discovered.
• Biochemically, Archaea are nearly as different from Bacteria as they are from Eukaryotes
(making them their own domain).
• The two central processes in molecular biology, genetic transcription and translation, are
more similar in Archea to those of Eukaryotes than Bacteria.
• Features of the Archaean lipids and their membranes are unusual and Archaeans lack a
peptidoglycan cell wall (except for a few organisms, and in those circumstances, the
peptidoglycan is biochemically distinctive from bacterial peptidoglycan).
• Most Archaeans are extremophiles (e.g., hot, cold, acidic, alkaline, highly saline, extreme
pressure etc), though not all. This story is changing as we learn more about Archaea).
• As of 2018, no clear examples of Archaean pathogens are known.
• Eukaryotes have almost equal numbers of genes from both Archaea and Bacteria