You are a searching for new species that are highly tolerant

You are a searching for new species that are highly tolerant to acidic conditions and find anew single celled organism that you call WERID. The organism is ~5 um, does not have a cellwall, but your portable field microscope is broken, and you are unable to look at the internalstructures. You do have portable equipment that will allow you to analyze the chemicalcontent of the WEIRD cells along with control prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells. Out of protein,DNA, and lipid, which analysis would be most useful if you were interested in figuring out ifyour cells are prokaryotic or eukaryotic? Explain your answer.

Solution

To find out whether the weird organism is a prokaryote or a eukaryote, following biochemical test can be performed:

1. Analyzing presence/absence of a particular enzyme in the cell can be used in classifying the microorganism. Because enzymes are produced directly from genetic material.

2. Analysis of protein profile by molecular weight can help in differentiating whether the microorganism is eukaryote or prokaryote.

3. Analysis of protein activity by size and charge.

Gene-based classification can also be performed to differentiate cells. With the advent of molecular genetics, whole genome sequencing is in progress for many microorganisms. Techniques such as RAPD, RFLP, Conserved gene sequence analysis, ribosome gene sequence analysis can be used to find out or identify the microorganism.