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By and large, humans and microbes live together in harmony. Microorganisms are present in most parts of the planet, in the soil, oil wells, volcanic ducts, and deep-sea vents. They also occupy niche areas of the human body; the gut flora are particularly important in "waste treatment". However, when the body's defenses are lowered or microorganisms break out of their normal habitat the result can be disease. Sore throat, urinary tract infections, oral and vaginal thrush are caused by "bugs" with delightful names such as Streptococcus pyogenes, Clostridium difficile, and Candida albicans.
Microorganisms may be divided into the fast-growing, readily mutating bacteria such as streptococci and the slower-- growing fungi such as Candida species. Bacterial and fungal infections can be treated by antibiotics. A well-known antibacterial agent is penicillin-G (1), discovered by Alexander Fleming in 1928 and developed by Florey, Chain, and coworkers in the early 1940s, as a matter of urgency for the treatment of bacterially infected war wounds (1).
Not all microorganisms are harmful and some are put to widespread good use. For example, bakers' yeast and brewers' yeast are widely used in the food and drink industry. In fact, wine and beer makers can be thanked for financing and stimulating much fundamental chemistry and biochemistry research in the latter part of the 19th century and the early 20th century. It was the vintners of France who subsidized Louis Pasteur and encouraged him, among many other things, to investigate the nature of tartaric acid in wine. Much of the early understanding of stereochemistry revolved around the elucidation of the structure of the isomers (enantiomers) of tartaric acid (2).
Pasteur showed that one enantiomer of tartaric acid was degraded rapidly by certain microorganisms leaving the other enantiomer untouched (2).
The degradation of one enantiomer of tartaric acid by a microorganism gives a clue to an important modern-day use of microbes (3). The controlled destruction of tartaric acid to form smaller molecules of use to the microorganism (as energy sources, building blocks, etc.) is catalyzed by proteins, native to the organism, called enzymes. Enzymes are true catalysts; they increase the rate of a transformation without being altered themselves. The microorganism contains a portfolio of enzymes that promote all the reactions necessary for its maintenance and...