Comparing a Bacteria to a Virus to a Prion to a Protist

Bacteria

Escherichia coli

Bacteria has a short generation span of bacteria that helps them adapt to changing environments.  The genetic recombination help produce new bacterial strains, processes such as transformation and transduction are involved in bacteria. Individual bacteria can adjust their metabolism to environmental change with the help of the control of gene expression. 






Virus

Rotavirus

Viruses are genomes enclosed in a protective coat. Its structures consists of the capsid, viral envelopes, and are found in bacteriophages/ phages.  They can reproduce, but only in a host cell.  Lytic or lysogenic cycles are used by phages to reproduce. In different modes, such as infection and  replication, animal viruses are diverse.  Vaccines are used to react against disease agents.  For evolution, scientist believe that they may have evolved from other mobile genetic elements. 


Prion 

Prion-Affected Tissue

Prions are infectious agents that are simpler than viruses.  They are protein infectious agents that may have been linked to degenerative brain diseases.  Some of these diseases may have been Creutzfedt- Jacob and the "Mad Cow Disease.  These proteins cannot reproduce, but they spread disease when they convert normal cellular proteins into a defective form of the prion.  

Protist

Plasmodium Falciparum 

Protist are eukaryotic microorganisms that belong in the Protista kingdom that includes unicellular organisms.  They may act as pathogens of animals and plants.  They reproduce using gametes or with binary fission. They control metabolism by using filter feeding, their cell membrane, and food vacuoles.