You are searching for new species that are highly tolerant to acidic conditions and find a new single celled organism that you call WERID. The organism is ~5 um, does not have a cell wall, but your portable field microscope is broken, and you are unable to look at the internal structures. You do have portable equipment that will allow you to analyze the chemical content 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 if your cells are prokaryotic or eukaryotic? Explain your answer. Solution The organism that we have discovered is single celled, and devoid of a cell wall. It is ~5 micrometers in length. Since the organism has no cell wall, we cannot reach a conclusion based or the presence/absence of peptidoglycan. Also, morphological analysis cannot be carried out since the microscope is broken. However, we do have portable equipment to analyze the chemical content of the cells: protein, DNA and lipid, and compare it with control prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells. The protein and lipid type and content may vary between prokaryotes and eukaryotes. However, the DNA has certain differences that are absolutely unique to prokaryotes and eukaryotes. For example, the ribosomes-part of the protein synthesis machinery differ between the prokaryotes and eukaryotes in that the prokaryotes have a 16S rRNA while the eukaryotes have an 18S rRNA. This difference can be exploited using our portable equipment to check for presence of genes in the WEIRD DNA that code for either of these rRNAs, and comparing them with the controls. Also, eukaryotes usually have DNA in the form of multiple chromosomes, while the prokaryotes have a single circular DNA molecule. The above differences are irrefutable, and unique to prokaryotes and eukaryotes. Therefore, our choice for identification of the WEIRD cells would be DNA analysis. P.S. It is also important to take into account that eukaryotes are usually multicellular, while prokaryotes are unicellular. Also, eukaryotic cells are generally larger in size than that of the prokaryotes..