Lower Kingdoms

A kingdom by kingdom look at viruses, fungus, bacteria and protozoa

Marshall Jiang

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5th Period • Chiles High School • March 27, 2008Marshall Jiang • email: marshall.jiang@gmail.com • Biology

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Virus

Pros Cons

The ability of virusto insert their DNAinto cells allowsgene therapy totake advantage ofthemThe viruses caneasily replicate,evolve and evadecells at the cell

sexpense, some-times causingdeath or the organ-ism

Lytic Infection Lysogenic Infec-tion

The host cell

s ma-chinery are con-verted to producethe virus. The ribo-somes and en-zymes make thevarious parts of thevirus and the celllyses to release thevirusesThe virus

s DNA isinserted into thecellular DNA so thatthe virus

s DNA isreplicated with thecell. The virus mayescape from time totime, infecting othercells or may go intoa lytic cycle.A virus is not considered alive due tothe fact that:1.they have no metabolism2.they form crystals, a property ofchemicals3.they are dependent upon a hostcell to reproduce4.They do not respond to stimuliPossible defence/treatment of a viralinfection is to use restriction enzymesthat recognize the virus

s DNA. Theenzyme then will cut and remove theDNA, allowing the cell to resumenormal operation.

Virus DefenseDead or Alive?

Fungus

The most common types of edible fungus aremushrooms. Other edible uses for fungus in-cludes using their spores to foment thegrowth of mold in cheeses.Some examples are:

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1. Stilton Cheese

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2. Portobello Mushrooms

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3. Straw Mushrooms

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In the 20th century, the destruction of elm trees in theUnited States and Europe was caused by the fungus

Ceratocystis ulmi

. The disease is mainly transferredthrough the Elm beetles.The fungus,

Phytophthora infestans

, is responsible forthe potato famine of the 1840

s. The resulting famineleft over 1 million dead and more than 1.5 million leftIreland. This blight is currently also a big threat to po-tato crops now as a new strain appeared which is ex-tremely virulent and destructive.Fungus rarely infect humans because most ofthem are facultative parasites. Some examples ofhuman diseases caused by fungus includes:•

Conidiobolus coronatus

- Nasal polyps andsinus infection•

Ustilago maydis

- skin lesions

• Schizophyllum commune

- A wood decom-posing mushroom sometimes found in ﬁngernails1.Deuteromycota - No spore, reproducesasexually2.Chytridiomycota (chytrids) - Producesspores that are capable of movement witha ﬂagellum3.Basidiomycota (club fungi) - producesmeiospores (produced by meiosis, hap-loid)