Which statement about viruses is NOT correct?
- A. They can be crystallised like a chemical substance
- B. They are destroyed by antibiotics such as penicillin
- C. They contain either DNA or RNA but never both
- D. They multiply only inside a living host cell
Explanation
Antibiotics act on structures and pathways that only cells have, such as peptidoglycan wall synthesis or bacterial ribosomes, and a virus has none of these, so penicillin has no effect on a viral infection. Viruses genuinely can be crystallised, which Stanley first did with TMV in 1935, and they genuinely carry only one type of nucleic acid and replicate only inside a host.
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