Question

In his experiments, Griffith found that when he injected live IIR (not disease causing) bacteria with heat-killed IIIS (disease causing) bacteria, the mice died of pneumonia. He was able to isolate live, IIIS bacteria implying that the nonvirulent IIR type had been transformed with DNA from the virulent IIIS. When injected into mice, the isolated IIIS bacteria were still able to cause disease over several generations. What does this suggest about transformation

Answer 1

Transforming material would be the genetic material.

Step-by-step explanation:

Griffith was performing the tests to know how bacteria cause pneumonia for which he selected two strains.

The R strain was avirulent but S bacteria was virulent which in one case when he heat killed the virulent bacteria and then injected them with the avirulent bacteria, he found that the avirulent bacteria that is R bacteria transformed into the virulent bacteria.

When he isolated the S bacteria, the R bacteria were still able to cause the disease in mice which shows that the bacteria were transformed permanently and since the disease-causing ability is passed on to the generations, therefore, the disease-causing factor is present on the hereditary material or the transforming material is the hereditary material.