Question

Bacteria generally have a few common catabolic pathways, each of which can degrade many different nutrients,...

Bacteria generally have a few common catabolic pathways, each of which can degrade many different nutrients, rather than having one specific catabolic pathway for each potential nutrient. Why would this be beneficial to an organism?

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Answer #1

Catabolism is the process of breaking down compunds into their smaller units. Bacteria, as you know is a unicellular prokaryotic organism having a small genome. The genome does not contain repetitive units, so as to minimize the size. Thats why, the genes are designed such way they can perform many functions. In the same way, few common catabolic pathways are present, which degrade different compounds. If there would have been specific pathway for one particular compound, more of the genes would be required; leading to bigger genome size. But, bacteria cannot afford that. So, it makes a productive combination of genes, which makes common pathway for degradation of various compounds altogether.

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