Introduction to microbiology.
Bacteriology: structure and functions of bacterial cell components (chromosome, plasmids, inclusions, ribosomes, plasma membrane, cell wall); interaction with the external environment and bacterial metabolism; flagella, motility, chemotaxis, pili, capsule, spores, biofilms; bacterial growth (duplication, growth curves, growth media).
Elements of virology: classification and structure of viruses; replication of animal viruses; acute, chronic, latent and persistent infections; viral oncogenesis mechanisms; antiviral defense mechanisms; antiviral drugs.
Elements of mycology: structure and replication of fungi and yeasts; general features of infectious fungi and their mechanisms of pathogenicity.
Elements of protozoology: classification and structure of protozoa; mechanisms of pathogenicity.
Microbiomes: microbial communities, microbiota and microbiomes; environmental microbiomes; human microbiome; 'omics' and microbiome investigation; structure and functions of intestinal microbiota; basics about skin, oral, respiratory and urogenital microbiomes.
Host-parasite relationships: pathogenicity and virulence; genetic control of bacterial pathogenicity; bacterial adhesion, colonization and invasion; exotoxins and endotoxins.
Chemo-antibiotics: concept of antibiosis; bacteriostatic and bactericidal antibiotics, MIC, therapeutic index; antibiotic selectivity; molecular effects of antibiotics; molecular mechanisms of antibiotic resistance.
Bacterial genetics: plasticity of the bacterial genome; DNA transfer and recombination; transduction; lysogenic conversion; site-specific and homologous recombination; conjugation; transformation; insertion sequences; transposons; integrons.
Bacterial genetics techniques: chemical transformation and electrotransformation; conjugation in liquid medium, on filter and by replica plating; methods of generalized transduction; isolation of phage-free transductants; use of insertion sequences and transposons in bacterial biotechnology; mutagenesis with TnphoA and MudJ; recombineering through Lambda Red system.
Elements of immunology: innate and acquired immunity; antigens, receptors and antibodies; cellular functions of innate immunity; HLA system; antigen processing and presentation; T and B cell activation; cell-mediated and humoral response; structure of antibodies and generation of their diversity.
Microbial proteomics techniques: extraction of proteins from microbial samples; polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis; tryptic digestion of proteins; basics about chromatographic separation of peptides and their identification by mass spectrometry.
Practical elements of microbial bioinformatics: databases; sequence alignment; taxonomic and functional annotation.