PATHOGEN

Pathogen

A pathogen in the oldest and broadest sense is anything that can produce disease. Typically the term is used to mean an infectious agent - a microorganism, in the widest sense such as a virus, bacterium, prion, or fungus, that causes disease in its host. The host may be an animal, human, a plant, or even another microorganism.

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pathogen

Noun

  1. Any organism or substance, especially a microorganism, capable of causing disease, such as bacteria, viruses, protozoa or fungi. Microorganisms are not considered to be pathogenic until they have reached a population size that is large enough to cause disease.


The above text is a snippet from Wiktionary: pathogen
and as such is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

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