MICR 4010 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Bacteriophage, Inflammatory Bowel Disease, Glycocalyx
21 Feb 2014
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Document Summary
The body provides 3 main types of surface: mucosa, skin, teeth. Mucosa exists in a variety of forms according to the body site. It is a key barrier to infections, trapping microbes and bringing them back up. Teeth: bacteria do not stick directly to enamel, a conditioning film of adsorbed molecules is always present on the surface (e. g. salivary glycoproteins). It is to the conditioning film that the first cells of the biofilm attach. Internal body surfaces: when a bacterium is able to gain access to normally sterile sites, it may bind (i) directly to the tissue of a target organ, (ii) to polymers of the extracellular matrix (ecm). The average bacterial cell has 2um in diameter. Natural attractive of repulsive forces (that are not ionic or electrostatic) between molecules. They are a consequence of dipole-dipole/dispersion interactions, that set up synchronized attraction between closely-aligned molecules. Arise from the forces that electric charges exert on one another.
