What are some bacteria, viruses, and fungi that are helpful?What are some that are harmful?

What are some bacteria, viruses, and fungi that are helpful?What are some that are harmful?


And what are some that are deadly?What are some bacteria, viruses, and fungi that are helpful?What are some that are harmful?
some yeast can be used to make bread or beer. Some yeast can cause disease, like Candida.





Some Strep can cause sore throat and scarlet fever and rheumatic fever. Some Strep is commonly found in milk causing souring, used in cheese making and etc. Strep dentis is now looked at as a cause for dental caries.





There are many helpful bacteria in decomposition that can cause an infection.What are some bacteria, viruses, and fungi that are helpful?What are some that are harmful?
Bacteria are almost universally benign or downright useful. They along with fungi decompose dead organisms and organic waste, both returning nutrients to the bottom of the food chain and preventing us from drowning in our own waste. Bacteria are used to make yogurt and cheese, among others, and fungi are also ingredients in cheese, allowed to grow with various types. We eat mushrooms. Yeast is vital in making bread rise and fermenting fruit and vegetable juices to make alcoholic beverages.





Bacteria are also genetically modified to produce proteins such as human insulin. Modified viruses may be used to deliver genes into bacteria for genetic modification, and bacteriophages are viruses that infect bacteria and may be useful one day in combating bacterial infections, since they are evolving to be resistant to antibiotics
Helpful bacteria:


Escherichia coli,Bacillus subtilis.etc





Harmful bacteria:


Diplococcus pneumoniae(causes pneumonia),


Bacillus anthraces(causes anthrax)





Helpful fungi:


Penicillum notatum,Penicillum degitatum, etc(We get penicillin from these)





Harmful fungi:


Penicillum cyrsogenum ,etc





JUST REMEMBER THIS ALL THE VIRUSES ARE HARMFUL BUT ONLY 3% OF ALL THE BACTERIAL SPECIES ARE HARMFUL
Viruses are obligate parasites that co-opt a cells machinery to self replicate but some time this, in itself, is of benefit. Viral replication is known to abscond with host DNA as part of the viral genome then insert the stolen DNA in another host cell resulting in a new form. This can even occur across species. Recombination is a powerfull tool for evolution.


';May we not feel that in the virus, in their merging with the cellular genome and their re-emerging from them, we observe processes which, in the course of evolution, have created the succesful genetic patterns that underlie all living things?'; 鈥?Salvador Luria, 1959 (.5)





A benefit conferred by viral genes in humans is a sequence installed by a retrovirus that regulates the amylase gene cluster, allowing us to produce amylase in our saliva. This sequence that we share with a few other primates enables us to eat starchy foods we otherwise couldn't. - Coffin, John M.; Stephen H. Hughes and Harold E. Varmus, eds. Retroviruses, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 1997. p 403.





Ceramide, a component of anti-wrinkle and anti-ageing creams, has been found in a virus. It is thought that the virus can use this to slow down the cell death of its host. It then has longer to replicate itself by control of when the host will die and thus ensure its own survival. This virus infects a marine algae species (Emiliania huxleyi). http://www.nerc.ac.uk/press/releases/200鈥?/a>


This virus has potential uses that could delay ageing and the effects of terminal diseases.





Harmful viruses include;


Nipah virus, transferred from pigs to humans.


Hendra virus spread from the fruit bat to horses, and from horses to a few people who handled the horses.





Viruses have enormous impact on marine and soil bacteria. Viruses influence the abundance and community composition of bacterial populations.They do it through lysis and altering bacterial genetic diversity through gene transduction and lysogenic conversion (when a virus induces change in the characteristics of a bacterial host).





Plants to fungi to bacteria


Many plants form symbiotic relationships with fungi called mycorrhizae (literally fungus-root). Mycorrhizae increase the ability of plants to take up nutrients and water. All this happens in the root zone called the rhizosphere. The immediate rhizosphere supports more microorganisms than in soil distant from the plant.


This increase in population density is most pronounced with bacteria. The reason the bacteria show a proximity gradient is that they receives exudates from the plants secreted into the soil while fungi being in a symbiosis receive the exudates directly.


Beneficial soil bacteria include actinomycetes that grow filaments like fungi. They degrade lignin, chitin and fix nitrogen in the soil. Bacteria make up 80 to 90% of the billions of microorganisms typically found in a gram of compost.


Mycorrhizae are part of the soils fungi. There are two forms endo- %26amp; ecto- mycorrhizae collectively called arbuscular. Both are necessary to release nutrients from the forest detritus for plants to use. In return plants secrete carbohydrate exudates. This totals some 10-25% of the plants photosynthetic activity. They partner in a symbiosis where plants capture energy from the sun to feed themselves and exchange this food for select nutrients and water retentive, humus rich soil made by the inhabitants of their rhizosphere. Mostly the fungi and actinomycetes seem to be responsible for humus formation. So this symbiosis is at least three way; plants to both bacteria and fungi. Between them they control the humic soil content and suppress pests.


While actinomycetes can be the source of diseases in humans, such as lung abscesses and appendicitis they are also the source of antibiotics including streptomycin, tetracycline, and cephalosporin.


Armilleria a fungal root disease is being counteracted with a naturally occurring beneficial soil fungus Hyphaloma fasciculare.