BIOS 242 Week 7 Discussion 1: Characteristics of Eukaryotic and Viral Pathogens
Question
Some people argue that viruses cannot be considered alive. Do
... [Show More] you agree with this statement? Defend your answer.
Answer
Yes, I do agree with this statement. Viruses cannot be considered alive, virus is a single stranded RNA particle or double stranded DNA component material, they are too specific to loco motor organs in their life cycle and these viruses survive on copying DNA and RNA material. They can copy but they do not replicate by themselves. Viruses require a host cell for replication, they also do not metabolize or do any of the other things, living things do. Viruses are like a unit of information that gets jammed in a printer and continuously prints itself. The paper is not alive, it’s using something that gives it the appearance of life.
2.)
Q.)
Prions are an unusual sort of pathogen. Discuss the difficulty of identifying this agent and the paradigm shift after Stanley Prusiner successfully demonstrated that these were in fact disease-causing agents.
A.)
Prions causes chronic degenerative neurological diseases called Spongiform Encephalopathies. Prion (unique proteins) Proteonaceous infectious particle. Historically Originally called “slow viruses” because of the long incubation period between infection and symptoms. In 1987, Dr. Stanley Prusiner identified these not as viruses but as infectious protein particles we now call Beta PRP or Prion PrP. PrP= Prusiner protein. This is almost identical to a protein found on the cell membranes of neurons. This protein is called Alpha PrP or Cellular PrP.
3.)
Q.)
What are ways in which protozoa, fungi, algae and viruses reproduce? Instead of male & female fungi use + & -. What does that mean?
A.).
Algae is type of protist, as well as protozoa. Fungus is in its own artificial kingdom. We use to classify them as plants, however, they are now considered an organism of their own.
Protists can come in many forms. They tend to sway to plant-like charecteristics but sometimes might also exhibit animal-like traits. Often times, unicelluar protists are more animal like than multicellular and are often heterotrphic. Protozoa would be an exampke of this.
Fungi are an organism whose cell wall is composed of chitin as opposed to cellulose. It can be either unicellular or multicellular but usually tends to sway to multicellular. Almost all of them contain spores which are crucial to reproduction as most of them carry gametes. They are saprotrophic and do not synthesize organic food components like plants but must obtain their food by means of decomposing ready-made organic materials. [Show Less]