Assignment 1
Instructions:
This assignment is concerned with the contents presented in Units 1 and 2. Before attempting this assignment, you are strongly advised to review the assigned readings and activities illustrated in both units. In this assignment, you must answer in the appropriate format as indicated in the question below. Read the question carefully before answering it.
Question
In essay form, describe a pathogenic bacterium, Staphylococcus aureus. Include the following information in your essay:
Unique features of the bacteria
Physiological properties of the microorganism (e.g. morphological characteristics)
Metabolic characteristics
Environmental conditions required for growth
Genetic properties
Pathogenic properties
Please include a reference section to support your argument.

These solutions may offer step-by-step problem-solving explanations or good writing examples that include modern styles of formatting and construction of bibliographies out of text citations and references. Students may use these solutions for personal skill-building and practice. Unethical use is strictly forbidden.

Staphylococcus aureus is one of the most common human pathogen and commensal that has a unique property of coagulation of human plasma. It is one of the most frequent “hospital-borne” microbes that causes infections that are often antibiotic resistant.
As the name indicates, Staphylococcus remain in a “bunch of grapes” like morphology with individual coccus shaped bacteria clumped together (Sthaphylo-). It forms golden or yellow colonies on nutrient agar medium hence, the epithet “aureus’, (derived from Aurum= gold).
Since Staphylococcus are Gram-positive, they stain purple with Gram staining procedure. That indicates that they have a thick cell wall with abundant peptidoglycan and the outer membrane is absent. All other structural features of Staphylococcus are that of a typical prokaryotic cell. They don’t have a defined nucleus, they don’t possess membrane-bound organelles, the ribosomes are 70s abundant with 16SrRNA and they lack histones.
Staphylococcus...