Lecture 5 & 6 - Anatomy and Chemical Composition

The composition of the bacteria can teach us things about how bacteria transport, explain why some antibiotics work on certain bacteria and not others, and how vaccines would work on these bacteria.\

Identification
There are three steps or levels for identifying genus and species. Genus and species like S. pneumoniae or H. sapiens is often too broad, so the equivalent for race in bacteria is serovars (or serotype), short for serological varieties.
 * 1) Gram Staining
 * 2) Cellular Morphology
 * 3) Biochemical Tests: Testing the physiology of the organism
 * 4) Testing antigens

Different serovars will have different sensitivity to antibiotics, so an antibiotic that works on one SEROVARS of S. pneumoniae will not necessarily work on the other ~90. Bacillus anthracis and Salmonella has over 2000 serovars each

Serovars are important in the development of vaccines. Since different serovars will have different antigens, one vaccine may not be 100% effective against all the serovars of a species of bacteria. For example, two common vaccines (PPV-23 and PCV-7) treat about 37 of the most common serovars for ''Streptococcus pneumoniae. ''