Glossary
Amino-acid : Amino acids are small molecules made up of a carboxylic functions and a amine function. They are a subset of polypeptides and proteins.
RNA : RNA called ribonucleic acid is the main component of ribosomes, it is thus located in the cytoplasm.It is composed of one polynucleotidic strand and the 4 hydrogen bases are adenine guanine cytosine and uracile.
Aspergillosis : Disease with the symptoms close to tuberculosis, due to the development of a aspergillus in the organism.
Aspergillus : mould which grows on sweetenedor in decomposition substances.
Chromosome : Each element of the nucleus of the cell, which separates itself in the form of stick during the cellular division and which contains genes.
Enzyme : Enzymes of the proteinic molecules occure in various reactions. They are biocatalysts, i.e. proteins allowing to increase the speed of a chemical reaction, at temperature compatible with the biological life (37° C). One of their properties is the specifity of action and reaction : each enzyme can be fixed only on one type of substrate (a molecule) and can catalyse only one chemical reaction. Once the catalysis is finished, the enzyme can enter in reaction again...
Eukaryotic : Living species whose cells have a nuclear membrane separating the nucleus from the cytoplasm, as opposed to prokaryotic.
Fermentation : Deterioration of organic substances by enzyms, created by microorganisms. If used in industrial microbiology, the term defines any production due to the catabolic activity of a microorganism.
Histoplasmosis : disease due to a parasitic fungus (the histoplasma) and infecting the skin, the ganglia, the bones and the internal organs.
Intertrigo : Dermatosis living in the folds of the skin.
Spontaneous generation : Ancestral theory allowing to explain the multiplication of micro-organisms, still called ' microbes'.
Koch (Robert) : Doctor and German microbiologist (Clausthal, Hanover, 1843 - Baden-Baden 1910). He discovered the bacillus of Tuberculosis (1882), called now bacillus of Koch, from which he prepared tuberculin (used nowadays in the cutaneous diagnostic tests). Koch also discovered the bacillus of the Cholera (Nobel Prize 1905.)
Procaryotic : Living species generally unicellular and whose genetic information is not stuck in the nucleus, as opposed to Eucaryotic. Examples: bacteria and cyanophyceus.
Protein : Proteins are macromolecules made up of amino acids. They are part of all biological process.
Silk industry : Breeding of silkworms and harvest of their cocoons which they produce.
Stereochemistry : Started from the chemistry which studies the three-dimensional arrangement of atoms in molecules.
Tuberculosis: Disease affecting the lungs caused by the bacillus of Koch, identified in 1882 by R.Koch.
Van Leeuwenhoek (Antonie) : Dutch naturalist (Delft 1632 - 1723). With the microscope which he manufactured, he described spermatozoïdes, many protozoa, the circulation of other microscopic structures and blood corpuscles.