Question

According to Patrick Forterre's hypothesis, viruses are ultimately responsible for ________.

1) introducing DNA into the ancestors of Bacteria, Archaea, and Eucarya

2) fusing with a bacterium and giving rise to the eukaryote nucleus

3) introducing information-processing genes into the ancestral chronocytes

4) enabling Archaea to withstand extreme environmental conditions causing mass extinctions

Answer 1

Patrick Forterre's hypothesis argues that viruses were significant in introducing DNA to the predecessors of Bacteria, Archaea, and Eucarya. This ties in with the concept that eukaryotic cells evolved through endosymbiosis, a widely accepted theory proposed by Lynn Margulis and later supported by the work of James Lake.

Step-by-step explanation:

According to Patrick Forterre's hypothesis, viruses are ultimately responsible for introducing DNA into the ancestors of Bacteria, Archaea, and Eukarya. This suggestion is a part of a broader discussion about the origins of eukaryotic cells. In recent studies, James Lake of the UCLA/NASA Astrobiology Institute proposed that the first eukaryotic cells evolved through an endosymbiotic gene fusion between an Archaea and a Bacteria.

This hypothesis explains why some eukaryotic genes resemble those of Archaea, while others resemble those from Bacteria. Additionally, the theory of endosymbiosis, which was comprehensively examined in the 1960s by Lynn Margulis, is now widely accepted and indicates that many nuclear eukaryotic genes and the molecular machinery for replication and expression are closely related to Archaea. However, metabolic organelles and genes responsible for energy-harvesting processes seem to have originated from bacteria.