Question

All EXCEPT which of the following statements about bacteriophages are true? View Available Hint(s) All EXCEPT which of the following statements about bacteriophages are true?

a.They use the metabolic machinery of a bacterial cell to produce more copies of themselves.
b.Within their heads, they can pack the entire main bacterial chromosome from one cell and transfer it to another.
c.They can pick up bacterial genes during the process of infecting a bacterial cell. They are viruses.

Answer 1

The false statement regarding bacteriophages is that they can pack and transfer the entire main bacterial chromosome from one cell to another; bacteriophages transfer only fragments of bacterial DNA during transduction.

Step-by-step explanation:

The statement b, "Within their heads, they can pack the entire main bacterial chromosome from one cell and transfer it to another." is not true about bacteriophages, making it the correct answer to the question. Bacteriophages cannot pack and transfer the entire main bacterial chromosome between cells. Instead, during the process called transduction, a bacteriophage may accidentally package pieces of the bacterial DNA into its head and transfer these fragments to another cell. This can lead to genetic changes in the bacteria, known as lysogenic conversion. Bacteriophages mainly use the cell’s metabolic machinery to replicate and produce new virions, and some can integrate their DNA into the bacterial genome (lysogenic cycle), or simply burst the cell to release new virus particles (lytic cycle).