MCAT Question Pack #58 Question

[walrus99]

I got this question wrong. Looking back I see why my choice was wrong, stupid mistake. A gene sequence obviously only hybridizes with its complementary sequence. What I am still confused about though, is why does a gene sequence in HUMAN LUNG TISSUE complement a synthetic hantavirus gene? This makes no sense to me.

The only thing that would make sense is if the hantavirus was a DNA virus and inserted its genome into infected lung tissue, causing a synthetic hantavirus gene to complement infected lung tissue, however, after googling, i found out hantavirus is an RNA virus so I'm still confused.

Any help is appreciated, thanks!

 

[Examkrackers]

This information is probably provided in the rest of the passage, but the experimenters likely synthesized this experimental hantavirus to infect host lung tissue by altering its genome in such a way that this was possible.