MICROBIOLOGY 1. Explain how the type of microbe relates to efforts to control its growth. 2. Discuss prions and difficulties that are surfacing concerning prion decontamination. Why is this problem?...

Explain how the type of microbe relates to efforts to control its growth.
Though, there are several techniques which may be included in the category “anti-
microbial”, but all of them cannot be applied universally since; all microbes do not respond in
the same way to antimicrobial agents. Therefore; such techniques are implemented on the basis
of type of microbe otherwise, these could not prove to be valuable.
For example; bacterial endospores might be inhibited chiefly via heat treatment whereas;
in context of vegetative bacterial cells, antibacterial agents such as; penicillin may be preferred.
Further, penicillin can‟t be called as; an efficient anti-viral agent because it inhibits the cell wall
synthesis procedure while, viruses are devoid of cell wall so, their removal is ensured by usage
of replication/transcription/translation inhibitors. In the same way, fungal growth can be opposed
with the assistance of those chemicals which may work against its cell wall‟s sterols, but it may
prove to be resistant against several antibiotics.
So; it might be said that anti-microbial agents should be selected according to the type of
micro-organism and during their selection, characteristics of desired microbe should also be kept
in mind since; there is no guarantee that an agent which can work against a particular class of
microbes would certainly stop the growth of all of the members belonging to that class. Such a
failure can be correlated with the variations that could be found among the members of same
class.
Discuss prions and difficulties that are surfacing concerning prion decontamination. Why
is this problem?
Prions are proteinaceous infectious agents that are able to generate slow, progressive and
fatal illnesses of the Central Nervous System. Because of severity of diseases caused by them,
their removal is considered as; an extremely important goal, but there is no technology which
could prove to be 100% promising against prions.
The reason behind failure of anti-microbial techniques in case of prions is that these
(techniques) either work against the cell-wall or interrupt cellular
metabolism and reproduction by interfering with the configuration of proteins and nucleic acids.
While in prions, cell wall is absent and these are hypothesized to infect and...