A Tiny Percentage of Prokaryotes Are Pathogens

question 222

Multiple Choice

A tiny percentage of prokaryotes are pathogens.All known pathogenic prokaryotes are bacteria, although many archaeal species live with humans and other eukaryotes.What explains this phenomenon?

• A) Lateral gene transfer of virulence genes only occurs between bacteria.
• B) Bacteria are more closely related to eukaryotes and are therefore better evolved to evade host defenses.
• C) Pathogenic traits evolve relatively rarely and do not appear to have evolved in the viruses or plasmids that infect archaea.
• D) Archaea are too distantly related to eukaryotes to possess the ability to infect them.
• E) Archaea lack the ability to forcibly enter a host, because they lack peptidoglycan.

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