88) What is the benefit of microorganisms in industry

Microorganisms are the small unicellular structures. Bacteria, viruses and fungi come under this category. They have he ability to reproduce themselves with the help of simple cell division. The single cell of the microorganisms contains the complete genetic material and this genetic material is transferred to the next generation of cells. They can increase in numbers but they cannot increase in size. They have great impact on human lives and are used for various purposes in biotechnology.

Food:-

Production of many foods is possible with the help of microorganism. For example foods like bread, beer and cheese are produced with the help of yeast.Similarly bacteria are involved in the production of butter, yogurt, many kinds of chocolates, coffee and other foods of daily life.

Medicine:-

It is very difficult to decode the human genome if any disorders occur in it as humans are the eukaryotic organisms. It means their body consists of various types pf cells and they are all differentiated into different tissues and organs.Microorganisms have made it possible to make such medicines which when enter the body, target the defected genes and make healthy changes in them and they become functional again. There is a common example of human insulin. Insulin is an antibiotic which is prescribed for the diabetic patients.Now it is possible to synthesize the insulin in microorganisms like bacteria and yeast. These microorganisms are inserted in the body in the form of vectors and cure the defected genes. Due to the availability of microorganisms in the environment, scientists have made use of them for making many medicines and drugs and also used them for drug delivery.

Health:-

People will be surprised if they get to know that their body contains ten times more microorganisms than the body cells. These microorganisms are useful for the body and perform various useful functions, for example E.coli (specie of bacteria) resides in the intestine and releases such components which help in the digestion of the food. If microorganisms help in performing different body functions then they also take something from the body that is they take nutrients from the body. One purpose of bacteria in the body is to fight against those harmful bacteria which can cause diseases. For example there is also a bacterium in the gut which helps in synthesizing the vitamins like biotin, vitamin K and folic acid.

Biotechnology:-

Biotechnology is one field which ha made use of microorganisms most. By using the techniques of biotechnology, scientists have succeeded in developing human insulin, growth hormones and other useful components of the body.Biotechnological processes use microorganisms for the drug delivery in the form of vectors and plasmids. Microorganisms have provided many beneficial things to agriculture as they are responsible for increasing the fertility of the soil. Due to this, the production of the plants increases and economy becomes strong.

Ecology:-

Bacteria present in the environment are responsible for recycling wastes and for producing energy sources like carbon and nitrogen. Plants use carbon dioxide during the process of photosynthesis. More the consumption of carbon dioxide will lead to more production of food. Some bacteria also help in cleaning the environment by digesting the pollutants and as a result they release nutrients which are environment friendly.

89)Yeasts,their application Yeasts are eukaryotic microorganisms classified in the kingdom Fungi, with 1,500 species currently described (estimated to be 1% of all fungal species). Yeasts are unicellular, although some species with yeast forms may become multicellular through the formation of a string of connected budding cells known as pseudohyphae, or false hyphae, as seen in most molds.  Most yeasts reproduce asexually by mitosis, and many do so by an asymmetric division process called budding.

By fermentation, the yeast species Saccharomyces cerevisiae converts carbohydrates to carbon dioxide and alcohols – for thousands of years the carbon dioxide has been used in baking and the alcohol in alcoholic beverages.  

Commercial Applications

Yeast has long been considered to be the organism of choice for the production of alcoholic beverages, bread, and a large variety of industrial products. This is based on the ease with which the metabolism of yeast can be manipulated using genetic techniques, the speed with which it can be grown to high cell yields (biomass), the ease with which this biomass can be separated from products and the knowledge that it is generally recognized as safe (GRAS).

The budding yeast S. cerevisiae and other yeast species have long been used to ferment the sugars of rice, wheat, barley, and corn to produce alcoholic beverages such as beer and wine. Yeast produce wine by fermenting sugars from grape juice (must) into ethanol. Although wine fermentation can be initiated by naturally occurring yeast present in the vineyards, many wineries choose to add a pure yeast culture to dominate and control the fermentation. The bubbles in champagne and sparkling wines are produced by a secondary fermentation, typically in the bottle, which traps the carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide produced in wine production is released as a by-product. One yeast cell can ferment approximately its own weight in glucose per hour.

Saccharomyces cerevisiae or baker’s yeast has long been used as a leavening agent in baking. Baker’s yeast ferment sugars present in dough, producing carbon dioxide and ethanol. The carbon dioxide becomes trapped in small bubbles in the dough, which causes the dough to rise. Sourdough bread is an exception, as it is not produced using baker's yeast, but is instead made with a combination of wild yeast and bacteria.

In addition to these traditional uses yeast has also been used for many other commercial applications. Vegans often use yeast as a cheese substitute and it is often used as a topping for products such as popcorn. It is being used in the petrochemical industry where it has been engineered to produce biofuels such as ethanol, and farnesene, a diesel and jet fuel precursor. It is also used in the production of lubricants and detergents. Yeast is used in the food industry for the production of food additives including colorants, antioxidants, and flavor enhancers.

Application to Human Disease and Research

Several approaches have been used to learn more about human genes once a connection between a human and yeast gene is made. In one approach, after a human disease-associated gene is discovered the sequence is compared to the sequences of all genes in the yeast genome to identify the most similar yeast gene(s). To study whether the genes are functionally related, the human gene is then expressed in a yeast stain where the yeast gene has first been inactivated by mutation. This allows researchers to determine whether or not the human gene is able to rescue viability, growth, or more specific defects associated with loss of the yeast gene, a method referred to as functional complementation. If the pathways and/or processes that a yeast gene is involved in are conserved, much can be learned about the function of the human gene based on what is already known about the related yeast gene. Once functional complementation has been established, researchers can use this system to further characterize the function of the related human gene product. Less directed approaches that often utilize high-throughput (HTP) techniques to randomly screen thousands of human genes at one time to identify gene or genes with complementing activity. Such approaches have successfully been used to identify conserved cell cycle regulators (CDC2), genes involved in cancer, and genes involved in neurodegenerative diseases.

There are many scenarios where studies can provide valuable information to researchers about the cellular pathways and/or processes a human gene is involved in when a related yeast gene is not present.

Yeast is becoming the organism of choice in studies aimed at the identification of drug targets and the mode of action of various drugs. Chemogenomics or chemical-genomics refers to the screens that use a combination of chemicals and genomics to probe drug targets and potentially identify novel drugs. Two main approaches have been used in these chemical-genomic studies. In the first, a genome-wide collection of diploid strains is constructed where one of the two identical copies of a gene is deleted, thereby lowering the levels of a particular gene product. Target genes and genes involved in the target pathway become more sensitive to the compound and are preferentially identified in this kind of screen. In a second approach, nonessential genes are systematically deleted and the collection screened with a drug to look for genes which buffer the drug target pathway. This approach is expected to identify genes required for growth in the presence of the compound. Additional approaches using overexpression screens have been used to identify genes involved in drug resistance including the potential drug target. Comparing the expression profile of yeast cells deleted for a gene to those of wild type yeast cells treated with a particular drug can also be an effective way to identify genes which may tell the researchers something about how the drug works in cells.