Bacteria Research Papers

Evolution is a process that typically takes hundreds of thousands of years.  This statement is only true, of course, only if you are any living species other than bacteria.  This is because the reproductive cycles of bacteria are only some what similar to that of eukaryotic cells:

To some extent, the genetical theory of adaptive evolution in bacteria is a simple extension of that developed for sexually reproducing eukaryotes.  In other, fundamental, ways the process of adaptive evolution in bacteria is quantitatively and qualitatively different from that of organisms for which recombination is an integral part of the reproductive process. Bacteria are haploid, reproduce clonally and rarely subject their genomes to the confusion of recombination”.

While one may assume that this fact would make the process of evolution for bacteria a simpler process than that for eukaryotic cells, the reality is that although the process is faster, it is by no means simpler.

One of the best examples illustrating the process by which bacteria evolves, or mutates, is the case of E-coli or Escherichia coli O157:H7.  This organism, “a highly virulent organism first linked to infectious disease in 1982,” has been responsible numerous cases of food borne epidemics worldwide.  When the bacteria first became identified, scientists were unsure of its deadly potential, but by the late 1980s they had discovered that the E. coli O157:H7 bacteria had mutation rates that were “1000- fold higher than those of typical E. coli”.

In an attempt to understand why the mutation rates were so exacerbated for this type of bacteria, scientists first considered the traditional modes of research on bacterial mutation.  Overall, the process of genetic mutation occurs through two processes: mutation and recombination.  “Mutation occurs when DNA is imperfectly copied during replication” while “recombination occurs when genes from tow parents are shuffled to produce offspring”.  Recombination typically occurs in human reproduction and between members of related species.  When bacteria recombine, they have a tendency to do so with more distantly related species.  This can cause some bacteria to mutate dramatically.  In general, however, the process of bacterial evolution relies heavily on random mutations.  In most cases the mutation is harmful to the bacteria and the strain quickly dies out.  However, in rare cases the mutation holds and the outcome is an evolved bacteria with some new intrinsic difference.

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Custom Bacteria Research Papers from Paper Masters

A research paper is an in-depth examination of Bacteria. More than just an overview of what was learned on Bacteria, like a term paper is, a research paper contains analysis of Bacteria along the lines of organizational theory and relevant published material. Research papers are highly analytical and can often be more than 8 to 10 pages. The key to a good research project is the examination of recently published journal articles and peer-reviewed material on the Bacteria chosen. Like the name implies, research papers are exactly that, a paper that examines the information that can be found on Bacteria.