10 Quiz questions to test knowledge from bacterial toxins lectures to antivirals(ie the last few lectures)

Question 1

Pathogens have the ability to cause disease; what do we analyse when we want to quantify the extent to which that pathogen causes disease?

Answer 1

Virulence

Question 2

What pathogen recognition receptor specifically detects the lipopolysaccharides produced by different bacterial species?

Answer 2

TLR4

Question 3

HIV-1 specifically infects a small group of immune cells such as helper T cells, monocytes, and macrophages. We say that is a tropism; what determines that tropism?

Answer 3

The specific binding of GP120 to CD4 on the T cell

Question 4

During the later part of the latency period of HIV infection and when patients are diagnosed with AIDS, what is the relationship between the viral load and the number of CD4-expressing T cells in the blood?

Answer 4

An inverse relationship

Question 5

What is the definitive host of a parasite?

Answer 5

The one in which the adult or the sexual stages occur

Question 6

Name three activities which are environmental interventions and are used to control parasites?

Answer 6

Mosquito nets, potable water and spraying insecticides

Question 7

What type of viral infection is characterised by producing disease symptoms that coincide with the peak of viral load?

Answer 7

Acute

Question 8

When serology is used to investigate a viral infection in a patient, we often say we are following an indirect way to detect the infection; why do we say that?

Answer 8

Because we detect the presence of antibodies not the virus

Question 9

PCR is a widely-used method to identify, with a high level of specificity, the presence of pathogens. What other advantage does this technique have?

Answer 9

It can quantify how many organisms we started with

Question 10

When developing antivirals as therapeutic agents we need to achieve selective toxicity; how do we do that?

Answer 10

By developing an agent that harms the virus but not the host