The only known infectious agents that lack genetic material are prions. Prions are misfolded proteins that can cause other proteins to misfold and aggregate, leading to neurodegenerative diseases such as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
Antibodies, also known as immunoglobulins, are proteins produced by plasma cells in the immune system to target and neutralize infectious agents such as bacteria, viruses, and other pathogens. These antibodies bind to specific antigens on the surface of the pathogens, marking them for destruction by other immune cells.
Wendell Stanley's work suggested that viruses are distinct infectious agents that are neither alive nor strictly non-living. His work helped demonstrate that viruses consist of genetic material surrounded by a protein coat, challenging the traditional classification of viruses as either living organisms or chemicals.
The flu viruses cause the infectious respiratory disease known as influenza.
It is not known if infectious agents also cause MALT lymphomas outside of the stomach.
The smallest complete living unit known to science is a single cell. The smallest single celled organisms known, mycoplasma, are not much bigger than the very largest viruses. Viruses are not technically considered to be living organisms by most scientists.
Viruses are larger infectious agents that contain genetic material (either DNA or RNA) surrounded by a protein coat. Viroids, on the other hand, are much smaller and consist only of short, single-stranded RNA molecules without a protein coat. Additionally, viruses require a host cell to replicate, while viroids can replicate autonomously in plant cells.
The smallest disease-causing organisms are viruses, which are simple infectious agents that can only replicate inside a host cell. They are smaller than bacteria and can cause a range of illnesses in humans, animals, and plants.
Yes, viruses are the smallest known pathogens that can cause disease in humans, as they are much smaller than bacteria and other microorganisms. Viruses rely on host cells to replicate and can infect a wide range of organisms, including humans, animals, plants, and even bacteria.
Viruses are the smallest microbes known that cause disease. They are sub-microscopic. This means that they can not be seen with a regular microscope because they are too small (measured in nanometers). It takes an electron microscope to see a virus particle. The second microbe that is among the smallest would be bacteria and then probably protists, as a generalization, after that (protists and bacteria have wider ranges of sizes than viruses). Bacteria are microscopic living organisms, while the viruses are non-living sub-microscopic organisms. Protists are single-celled living organisms, such as protozoa.
prion - it is a single misshaped protein molecule without any genetic material, but it can cause other protein molecules to become misshapen too. Prions have been found to cause several degenerative neurological diseases like Alzheimer's disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, mad cow disease, chronic wasting disease, etc. (all transmissible spongiform encephalopathies in various mammalian species)
Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is the causative agent for AIDS. The most common type is known as HIV-1 and is the infectious agent that has led to the worldwide AIDS epidemic