Useful Microbes

Microbes can be beneficial to us?!?

 Useful Microbes

There are billions of microbes and lots more we

haven’t discovered yet

Most of these microbes are either

• Necessary for our survival
• Good for us
• Can be used for our benefit in industry
 In Nature
Microbe – plant Interaction Roots
– Many microbes are found in
nature and help plants to
grow

– Rhizobacteria found in the

soil fixate nitrogen which is
required for many crops to
grow
Microbes
 In Nature

• Oxygen production
– Cyanobacteria or
‘blue-green algae’
produce oxygen in
the ocean
 In Nature
• Decomposition
– Defined as the breakdown of raw
organic materials to a finished
compost

– The fungi invade the organic

matter in soils first and are then
followed by bacteria.

– Without this recycling of inorganic

nutrients, primary productivity on
the globe would stop.
 In the Food Industry
• Cheese and yogurt
– Lactic acid fermentation produces
yogurt and cheese. Some fungi are
also used to make the cheese turn
blue! Lactobacilli bacteria used in
yogurt and cheese making

• Bread and dough products

– Yeast is used to make bread and
dough products.
• Alcohol Production
– Yeast is also used in alcohol
production when fermentation occursSaccharomyces cerevisiae yeast
without air used in bread making and
alcohol production
 In the Food Industry
• Fermentation
– A process during which the bacteria break
down the complex sugars into simple
compounds like carbon dioxide and alcohol.

– Fermentation changes the product from one

food to another.
 In Medicine
• Penicillin
– Discovered by Alexander
Flemming in 1928
– Produced by the fungus
Penicillium notatum The fungus Penicillium produces
– One of the most commonly used the antibiotic Penicillin

antibiotics today
• Vaccines
– Discovered by Edward Jenner in 1796
– Usually made from weak or inactive
versions of the same microbes that
make us ill
 Probiotics
• What are they?
– Live microorganisms which when
administered in adequate amount
confer a health benefit on the
host

• What type of bacteria are they?

– Lactobacilli which are part of the
beneficial natural microflora
found in the human gut
 Probiotics
How do they work?
– Interacting directly with the disease-causing microbes,
making it harder for them to cause disease

– Reinforce the natural barrier of the digestive tract

protecting against pathogenic microbes

– "Competitive exclusion" in which beneficial microbes

directly compete with disease-causing microbes for food
and other resources, eventually crowding them out

– Interacting with and strengthening the immune system