Introduction
When it comes to the main nutritional categories of microbes, there are four that involve photoautotrophs, photoheterotrophs, chemoautotrophs, and chemoheterotrophs. An example of photoautotrophs is cyanobacteria, which obtains its essential nutrients from sunlight (Wessner et al., 2020). An example of photoheterotrophs is purple bacteria, and its primary method of getting nutrients via photosynthesis (Wessner et al., 2020). As for chemoautotroph, iron bacteria is among the examples, which feeds on compounds from oxidizing ferrous iron (Wessner et al., 2020). Finally, chemoheterotrophs’ example, ameba, absorbs water-living small organisms and plants.
Microbial Life
Microbial life is incredibly varied and has the ability to exist in highly inhospitable environments. The ecosystems of the seas are the greatest of such habitats because most of life on Earth, particularly microbial life, occurs in locations that do not obtain sunlight (Wessner et al., 2020). Thus, microbial life can indeed exist even in the absence of light or organic nutrition, and examples of such microbes are chemo-litho-autotrophs.
Polymerase Chain Reaction
Taq DNA Polymerase plays a critical part in the synthesis and amplification of new DNA strands, which makes it crucial to the Polymerase Chain Reaction. Taq DNA Polymerase is quite effective, and as soon as it attains its ideal temperature, it starts to work correctly (Wessner et al., 2020). It additionally possesses a higher potential for amplifying and the capability to use 150 nucleotides within a second, as well as a half-life of over several hours at 92 °C (Wessner et al., 2020). Due to stability issues, DNA polymerases for severe thermophiles are not suited since they proliferate at temperatures exceeding 80 °C.
Electron Transport
An electrochemical gradient is created in the electron transportation chain by the movement of electrons from one molecule to the other, which releases energy. During chemiosmosis, adenosine triphosphate (ATP) is produced using the energy contained in the gradients (Wessner et al., 2020). The activity of ions diffusing over a membrane is illustrated by the term chemiosmosis.
Reference
Wessner, D., Dupont, C., Charles, R., & Neufeld, J. (2020). Microbiology. John Wiley & Sons.