The basics lesson on microbiology so we’re gonna specifically look at prefixes and suffixes to describe different bacteria viruses and fungi the word microbiology is what we’re gonna look at quickly first just to know what it actually means.
Micro means small not visible to the naked eye.
bio means life and logy means study of.
so microbiology means the study of small life or the study of life that’s not visible to the naked eye so to begin the prefix bacteria and the suffix bacter mean bacteria so words like bacteriophage and enterobacter mean bacteria or something relating to a bacteria.
the prefix via or viral and the suffixes fire or virus these mean virusor something relating to a virus so you can think of words like right on of your which is an antiviral drug and you can think of words like anti virus so again these mean virus or something relating to a virus another suffix that means virus is also phage or faj now with regards to fungus or fungi these are related or these are denoted by the prefix Mike or Michael or my cito so you can think of onychomycosis those types of words so a lot of microbiological organisms are described by where they inhabit so locations specifically so some of these include intro the prefix intro which means intestine so you can think of again entero bacter or enterobacter ECA pneumo which means air or lung so you can think of pneumococcusrhabdo which really means striated but it is in the context of striated muscle adeno which means relating to a glance oh you can think of adenovirus gone Oh which denotes reproductive or something with regards to the reproductive system you can think of go norrhea man injau which means the meninges in the central nervous system so you can think ofmeningococcal and crypto which reallyjust means hidden you can think ofCryptococcus so these are more or lessanatomical terms but they’re useful forknowing with regards to my carbiological organisms like bacteria because a lot of them are actually described by using some of these anatomical locations so moving on to how we describe bacterial shapes a lot of bacteria are described by how they look how they are shaped the first one that you often hear of is staff or staff flowor Staphylococcus really the prefix staff or staff hello means a cluster and really means a cluster of grapes so when we look at a cluster of grapes and we look at Staphylococcus aureus there is similarities so that’s why Staphylococcus is the way it’s named staff alone means cluster grapes in it in Staphylococcus appears like a cluster of grapes when we look at it under a microscope another one that’s very common is strep or strep toe this means chain so the bacteria themselves are lined up in a chain Vibrio the prefix or the word Vibrio means a curved rod so you can think of Vibrio cholera and you can see here here is a curved rod and here is actually Vibrio cholera and easy can see it’s in a shape of a curved rod other ones include spiral ‘m and spiral these are both related to their structure being spiral shaped and another one is cost REE which means spindle so you can think of Clostridium difficile another term to describe abacterial shape is the Chi know so a Chino means spine like or prickle shaped so a kind of caucus in act in O Actinobacteria these or the prefix actin O means R a like processes so now that we’ve looked at prefixes that describe bacterial shapes let’s look at suffixes that describe their shape suffix is like the suffix bacillus and it’s plural form bacilli mean that the bacteria has a rod shape so if we’re to use that in the context of streptobacillus so bacilli again is rod shaped we learn that strep domains chain so streptobacillus are rod shaped bacteria in a chain so that’s how we use that when we put them together the suffix caucus and it’s plural form cocci means that the bacteria are round and spherical so again we’ve used Staphylococcus as an example and we can also use Diplo so Diplo means that they’re paired that their double or there’s two of them now some bacteria are described by what process they perform or their metabolism so processes like the suffix pyogenes means pusforming piyo means pus Jeanne’s meansforming or initiating so pyogenes meanspast form you can think of the bacteriastreptococcus pyogenes lacto the prefixlacto means or and something to do withrelating to lactic acid or lactose okaymight mean that bacteria metabolizelactic acid or lactose or they produceit in some waythe other some of the other processesthat may be used in describing bacteriainclude the prefix arrow which relatesto air and spore au which relates tospore formation so now that we’ve talkeda lot about bacteria we’ll move on tolooking at specifiers for viruses so thefirst one is the prefix per corner andthis is kind of clever in the sense thatit really is just two words put togetherPico RNA Pico RNA which means smallearning so picornavirus that’s relatedto something to do with small RNA whenit was named on corn a virus again issimilar to pakora it’s just two words onCo RNA unko means cancer so it’ssomething related to cancer RNA Mixelvirus so or something with regards tothe prefix Mixel means mucus parvo likeparvovirus b19 parvo means small andretro the prefix retro means backward sowe can think of retroviruses you canthink of HIV virus these are retro viralorganisms so now that we learned allthose prefixes and suffixes to describedifferent types of bacteria viruses andfungi let’s take a look at some practiceproblems so the first one isstreptobacillus streptobacillus so if wewere to look at streptobacillus we breakit down the prefix strep toe means chainand bacillus means rod-shaped sostreptobacillus means a chain ofgram-positive rod-shaped bacteria so youmight not necessarily know that it’sgram positive but it is but really whatstreptobacillus means is it’s a chain ofrod-shaped bacteria the next word we’regonna look at is onychomycosis so if webreak that down on eco means the nail soa fingernailMike or Maiko means fungus and OSISmeans abnormal condition so Ani Cocoonychomycosis means an abnormalcondition of nail fungus so it’s afungal infection of the nail the nextone we’re going to look at isstaphylococci so because we seeStaphylococcus or here at about it a lotwhat does it actually mean it’s good topractice what this actually means so ifwe break it down staph a low means acluster of grapes and cocci is theplural form of caucus which means roundor spherical shape bacteria sostaphylococci means a round or sphericalgram positive bacteria grouped inclusters and that’s exactly what you seewhen you look at it under the microscopethat’s how we know it’s Staphylococcusbecause it’s a big cluster of roundshaped bacteria that are gram positiveafter a Gram stain so that is why aStaphylococcus is named the way it is sothe next word we’re going to look at ispneumococcus so if we break downpneumococcus pneumo means air or lungand we just learned that caucus meansround spherical shaped bacterium sopneumococcus means a round shapedbacterium that infects the lung abacteriophage if we break that downbacteria that’s easy that means bacteriaor something relating to a bacteria andfudge or phage means a virus so whatdoes this really mean a bacterial viruswhat does that mean well it kind ofactually means what it actually denotesbacterial virus so it’s a bacteriainfecting virus in the last word we’re gonna look at is adenovirus so what does that mean adeno we learned in this lesson means gland or relating to glands enviros means virus so adenovirus it really means a gland virus so it’s a virus that infects or is related to infection of glands anyways guys hope you found this lesson helpful this was a lesson looking at medical terminology where the cards to microbiology.