Read the given passage carefully and answer the questions.

Antibiotics have greatly improved our capacity to treat deadly diseases such as plague, whooping cough (kali khansi), diphtheria (gal ghotu) and leprosy (kusht rog), which used to kill millions all over the globe. Streptokinase produced by the bacterium Streptococcus and modified by genetic engineering is used as a 'clot buster' for removing clots from the blood vessels of patients who have undergone myocardial infarction leading to heart attack. Microbes are diverse-protozoa, bacteria, fungi and microscopic animal and plant viruses, viroids and also prions that are proteinacious infectious agents. The puffed-up appearance of dough is due to the production of $CO_2$ gas. Similarly the dough, which is used for making bread, is fermented using baker's yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae). Primary sewage treatment basically involve physical removal of particles - large and small - from the sewage through filtration and sedimentation. These are removed in stages; initially, floating debris is removed by sequential filtration. Then the grit (soil and small pebbles) are removed by sedimentation. All solids that settle form the primary sludge, and the supernatant forms the effluent. The effluent from the primary settling tank is taken for secondary treatment. The primary effluent is passed into large aeration tanks, where it is constantly agitated mechanically and air is pumped into it. This allows vigorous growth of useful aerobic microbes into flocs. While growing, these microbes consume the major part of the organic matter in the effluent.

Prions are made up of:

Protein

The correct answer is Option (3) → Protein 

Besides macroscopic plants and animals, microbes are the major components of biological systems on this earth. Microbes are present everywhere – in soil, water, air, inside our bodies and that of other animals and plants. They are present even at sites where no other life-form could possibly exist– sites such as deep inside the geysers (thermal vents) where the temperature may be as high as 100⁰C, deep in the soil, under the layers of snow several metres thick, and in highly acidic environments. Microbes are diverse– protozoa, bacteria, fungi and microscopic animal and plant viruses, viroids and also prions that are proteinacious infectious agents.

Prions are proteinaceous infectious particles that lack nucleic acids (no DNA, no RNA).They are misfolded proteins. They Can induce normal proteins in the host’s brain to misfold. They Cause degenerative neurological diseases.

• In humans → Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (CJD), Kuru.
• In animals → Mad cow disease (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, BSE), Scrapie in sheep.