02 Gm positive bacilli
- Air bellow : obligate aerobe
- Large ships in chain: Large gram positive rods in chains
- Leather armor with buckles: Protein capsule composed of poly-D-glutamic acid
- Walnuts, like seeds: Spore forming
- Sheep: "Wool sorters disease"- classically causes pulmonary infection in those who work with wool. Spores stay in wools for long time
- Black ground and flame: Most common manifestation of infection is cutaneous black eschar
- Large axe with blood: Pulmonary infection may lead to pulmonary hemorrhage
- Ship with wide mast: Widened mediastinum on chest x-ray if pulmonary infection.
- Shield with EF: Edema factor
- viking tent: Edema factor acts by causing elevation in cAMP
- LF shield: Lethal factor
- Burning map: Map kinase, burned and turned into eschar. Lethal factor responsible for tissue necrosis
- Pink flower: Flouroquinolone treatment
- Bicycle: Tetracycline treatment
- Viking reheating rice and vomiting: B.cereus classically causes vomiting after eating reheated rice.
Clostridium Tetani
- purple color: gram positive
- Walnuts: Spore forming
- Gas mask: Obligate anaerobe
- Pots of earth on ground: Spores found in soil
- Nails: Endospores transmitted via puncture wound from rusty nail (construction zone)
- Barbed wire: Endospores transmitted via puncture wound from barbed wire (construction zone)
- Evil monkey smiling: Lock jaw symptoms and facial spasms (risus sardonicus (evil grin))
- Monkey extend back: Opisthotonus, muscle spasms cause arched back
- Orange syringe: Vaccine consists of deactivated toxin (same color orange), not the bacteria
- Scissors on pulley: Tetanus toxin (not the organism) migrates to CNS via retrograde axonal transport
- Snare trap: Tetanus toxin cleaves SNARE
- G and G labs: Tetanus toxin cleaves SNARE preventing release of inhibitory neurotransmitters GABA and Glycine, inhibit inhibitors = uncontrolled firing
- Wrench and saw: Tetanus toxin inhibits inhibitory neurotransmitter release from Renshaw cells in spinal cord
Clostridium Botulinum
- violet color: gm +
- mechanical nuts: Spore forming
- gas mask: Obligate anaerobe
- Canned robot shape: Transmitted by improperly canned, insufficient heating of home canned food, allow spore survival and heat production (family developing neuro symptoms)
- Robots heads and torso going limp: Descending flaccid paralysis (Guillian Barre ascending) (multiple people with symptoms = botulism)
- Only affects PNS, not CNS because can't cross BBB
- Droopy robot eyelids: Ptosis
- Oil: Infantile bolulism transmitted via honey ingestion
- Baby robot flaccid: "Floppy baby"
- Adults ingest spores directly ok because anaerobes outcompete in GI. Babies have low GI anaerobe flora
- Ach power supply: Botulism toxin prevents acetylcholine release (excitatory) at neuromuscular junction
- Scissor cutting: protease cutting SNARE
- Adults symptoms by ingest toxins; baby symptoms by ingest spores
Clostridium Difficile
- Gas mask: Obligate anaerobe
- Walnuts: Spore forming
- Apples: Exotoxin A
- Brushing apple: Exotoxin A attaches to brush border
- Chocolate syrup: Watery diarrhea
- Shoe from chocolate syrup: Toxin detected in stool
- Clean hand sign: Clindamycin: C. Diff infection after antibiotic use
- B sign: Exotoxin B
- Kid picking apart actins: Exotoxin B disrupts cytoskeleton by depolymerizing actin. Inactivates Rho regulatory protein. Loss of intracellular tight junction = cell rounding
- Membrane on right: Pseudomembranous colitis
- Tongue looking van: Oral vancomycin for treatment
- metro train: IV metronidazole for treatment
Clostridium Perfringes
- Gas mask: Obligate anaerobe
- double fine zone: Double zone of hemolysis when plated in anaerobe environment
Anaerobic culture of Clostridium perfringens on blood agar. The characteristic double zone of clear beta-hemolysis around a colony is clearly seen (arrow).
- Walnut and pots : Spores found in soil
- Private fell of motorcycle: Infection associated with motorcycle accidents and other major trauma
- Private: Infection associated with deep penetrating military wounds
- Slow sign in puddle: May cause slow onset diarrhea; spores have to germinate first before cause diarrhea, not preformed
- Gas from motor cycle: Causes "gas gangrene", causes crepitus when palpate. Metabolizes carbohydrates, producing the gas.
- alpha flag on bob pins: Alpha-toxin, lecithinase (phospholipase), disrupts cell membrane function
- tomatoes on ground smashed: Alpha-toxin also has hemolytic activity
Cornyebacteria diptheria
- purple hue: gram positive
- Guy playing with toys, zig zag lines: Metachromatic granules (red and blue). Club shaped rods in V or Y formation
- Guy with bow tie playing elongating piano: ADP ribosylation of elongation factor 2, inhibits protein synthesis, cell death, pseudomembrane
- Candy with plastic wrap: Pseudomembrane on throat and tonsils
- Bull: Bull neck
- Heart shaped cape block bull: Cardiotoxic effects: myocarditis, arrhythimia, heart block
- Guy eating sausages shaped like nerves: Demyelination causes nerve deficits starting in posterior oropharynx
- Fibrinous exudate → systemic circulation → cortical neurons: This is the route that diphtheria toxin takes from the pseudomembranous exudate it forms in the pharynx to the bloodstream and subsequently to cardiac and cerebral cortical tissues.
- Droplets from bull's mouth: Transmitted by respiratory droplets
- Tele screen: Plated on Tellurite agar
- Kid watching and laughing: "Plated on Loeffler's medium"
- Bull licking: Elek's test, differentiate toxin variant
- Syringes: Inactivated pertussis toxoid vaccine, IgG
- Treatment: administer IVIG
Listeria monocytonegenes
- Cat: Catalase positive
- Falling tree: Tumbling motility
- Beta bulb: Beta hemolytic
- Actin rocket half in and out: Facultative anaerobic bacterium
- Ice on window: Motile with flagella at 30 degrees and below
- Actin rocket: At body temperature, motile by actin polymerization, or "actin rockets"
- Pregnant woman: May be acquired transvaginally- pregnant women may be advised not to eat soft cheese
- Milk: Transmitted from dairy products
- Cheese: Transmitted by consumption of certain of cheeses
- Santa: Infection also prevalent in elderly population
- Baby with helmet: Common cause of neonatal meningitis
- Amplifier: Treatment with ampicillin
Actinomyces israeli
- gas mask: Obligate anaerobe, nocardia is aerobe
- Tree branching, violet wrap: Gram positive filamentous rod
- Yellow rocks: Yellow sulfur granules
- Canal draining: Formation of sinus tracts. Draining sinus tract
- Jaw wrap: Infection associated with jaw trauma
- Pencil: Treat with penicillin
Nocardia
- NH3 spray bottle: Urease positive
- Branching tree: Gram-positive branching filamentous rod. - Similar to actinomyces
- air bellow: Obligate aerobe
- Cow boy cloth with tails: Mycolic acids with two tails
- cat: Catalase positive, pts with CGD at increased risk
- Fast drawing of gun: Partially acid fast, carbo fuscia stain
- Cactus pot broken: Found in soil
- Cane: Immunocompromised especially affected
- Coughing: Pneumonia like symptoms
- Bullet hitting chest: Associated with cavitary lesions in lung
- Bullet leaving hole in hat: Brain abscess formation
- Cow print with red around: Cutaneous symptoms- indurated lesions and inflammatory reaction
- Rotten eggs: Treat with sulfonamides