Viruses

A virus is a small infectious agent that can replicate only inside the living cells of organisms. Viruses
infect all types of organisms, from animals and plants to bacteria and archaea. The word is from the Latin
virus referring to poison. The term virion is also used to refer to a single infective viral particle.
Life properties
Opinions differ on whether viruses are a form of life, or organic structures that interact with living
organisms. They have been described as "organisms at the edge of life":
they are similar to organisms because they possess genes
evolve by natural selection
reproduce by creating multiple copies of themselves through self-assembly
they do not have a cellular structure, which is seen as the basic unit of life.
Viruses have one major characteristic in common: they are OBLIGATE INTRACELLULAR
PARASITES. Viruses do not have their own metabolism, and require a host cell to make new products.
They are unable to grow and naturally reproduce outside a living host cell, so viruses spontaneously
assemble within cells, and their survival is absolutely dependent upon the continued survival of their
hosts.
Structure
Viruses display a wide diversity of shapes and sizes. A complete virus particle, known as a virion,
consists of three parts:
a) virus core
b) protein coat
c) envelope (in some cases).

a) virus core - they can contain ONLY ONE FORM OF NUCLEIC ACID - either DNA or RNA, (but
NEVER contain both), and enzyme molecules a DNA virus or a RNA virus respectively)
b) a protein coat that protects these genes; All viruses are covered with a PROTEIN COAT called the
CAPSID. If a virus has ONLY a protein capsid covering it, it is termed a NAKED CAPSID VIRUS or
NON-ENVELOPED VIRUS.
c) in some cases an envelope of lipids surrounds the protein coat. The lipid membrane is called an
ENVELOPE and such viruses are termed ENVELOPED VIRUSES.
Adenoviruses are medium-sized (90100 nm), nonenveloped (without an outer lipid bilayer) icosahedral
viruses composed of a nucleocapsid and a double-stranded linear DNA genome. There are 57 described
serotypes in humans, which are responsible for 510% of upper respiratory infections in children, and
many infections in adults as well.
Viruses of the family Adenoviridae infect various species of vertebrates, including humans. Adenoviruses
were first isolated in 1953 from human adenoids.
Different types/serotypes are associated with different conditions:

respiratory disease

conjunctivitis

gastroenteritis

Shape
The shapes of viruses range from simple helical and icosahedral forms to more complex structures.
Viruses may consist of circles, ovals, long thick or thin rods, flexible or stiff rods and ones with
distinctive heads and tail components.
Transmission
Viruses spread in many ways; viruses in plants are often transmitted from plant to plant by insects that
feed on the sap of plants, such as aphids;
viruses in animals can be carried by blood-sucking insects known as vectors. Influenza viruses are spread
by coughing and sneezing. Rotavirus, common causes of viral gastroenteritis, are transmitted by the
faecal-oral route and are passed from person to person by contact, entering the body in food or water. HIV
is one of several viruses transmitted through sexual contact and by exposure to infected blood. Immune
response usually eliminates the infecting virus. Immune responses can also be produced by vaccines - an
artificially acquired immunity to the specific viral infection. Some viruses (AIDS and viral hepatitis)
evade immune responses and result in chronic infections. Antibiotics have no effect on viruses, but
several antiviral drugs have been developed.
Replication cycle
Viral populations do not grow through cell division, because they are acellular. Instead, they use the
machinery and metabolism of a host cell to produce multiple copies of themselves, and they assemble in
the cell. The genetic material within virus particles, and the method by which the material is replicated,
varies considerably between different types of viruses.
During their life cycle viruses can undergo lysis process or lysogenic process in the host cells.
Bacteriophage
Enterobacteria phage is called bacteriophage because it infects only bacteria (for example E. coli
bacteria). Its genome is DNA, and is held in an icosahedral head. Bacteriophage is relatively large. Its tail
fibres allow attachment to a host cell, and because in the bacteriophages tail is a hollow, so bacteriophage
can pass its nucleic acid to the cell, thus infecting it during attachment. Bacteriophage is capable of
undergoing a lytic lifecycle and a lysogenic lifecycle.
Accordingly, there are two primary types of bacteriophages: lytic bacteriophages and temperate
bacteriophages.
1. Bacteriophages that replicate through the lytic life cycle are called lytic bacteriophages, and are so
named because they lyse the host bacterium as a normal part of their life cycle.
2. Bacteriophages capable of a lysogenic life cycle are termed temperate phages. When a temperate
phage infects a bacterium, it can incorporate its DNA into the bacterium's DNA and become a
noninfectious prophage.

Lysis (lytic) cycle

With lytic phages bacterial cells are broken open (lysed) and destroyed after immediate replication of the
virion. As soon as the cell is destroyed, the phage progeny can find new hosts to infect.
There are five basic stages in the lytic cycle of viruses (bacteriophages): 1) attachment; 2) penetration; 3)
biosynthesis; 4) assembly; 5) release.
Attachment. To enter a host cell, bacteriophages attach to specific receptors on the surface of bacteria.
This specificity means that a bacteriophage can infect only certain bacteria having receptors to which they
can bind, which in turn determines the phage's host range.
Penetration. Bacteriophages use a syringe-like motion to inject their genetic material into the cell with
the help of ATP.
Replication. Bacterial ribosomes start translating viral mRNA into protein. For RNAbased phages, RNA replicase is synthesized. Proteins modify the bacterial RNA
polymerase so that it preferentially transcribes viral mRNA. The hosts normal
synthesis of proteins and nucleic acids is disrupted, and it is forced to manufacture
viral products instead.
Virion assembly. The assemble of new virus particles involves the assistance of
helper proteins. The base plates are assembled first, the tails, the head capsids, are
assembled. The DNA is packed within the heads. The whole process takes about 15
minutes.
Release of virions. Phages may be released via cell lysis. Lysis, is achieved by an
enzyme called endolysin, which attacks and breaks down the cell wall
peptidoglycan. Released virions are free, and are capable of infecting a new
bacterium.
Lysogenic cycle
The lysogenic cycle does not result in immediate lysing of the host cell. In contrast
to virion release, phages displaying a lysogenic cycle do not kill the host but, rather,
become long-term residents as prophage (endogenous phage, temperate
bacteriophage ).
Lysogenic Life Cycle of a Temperate Bacteriophage
1. Adsorption: phage adsorbs to receptors on the bacterial cell wall.
2. Penetration: phage injects its genome into the bacterial nucleoid to become a prophage.
3. Replication: As the bacterium replicates, the prophage replicates as a part of the nucleoid.
4. Expression of the phage genes controlling phage replication is blocked by a repressor protein, and
the phage DNA replicates as a part of the bacterium's DNA so that every daughter bacterium now
contains the prophage
5. Rare spontaneous induction: phage replicates via the lytic life cycle.
The attachment and penetration stages of a lysogenic cycle are the same as in the
lytic stage, but later the phage integrates its DNA into bacterial chromosome and

thus becomes a part of bacterial genome, and now is called prophage.

Chromosome with integrated profage replicates and many generations of daughter
cells can have prophage inside.
Retrovirus.
A retrovirus is an RNA virus that is duplicated in a host cell using the reverse
transcriptase enzyme to produce DNA from its RNA genome. The DNA is then
incorporated into the host's genome by an integrase enzyme. The virus thereafter
replicates as part of the host cell's DNA. Retroviruses are enveloped viruses that
belong to the viral family Retroviridae. Once in the host's cell, the RNA strands
undergo reverse transcription in the cytoplasm and are integrated into the host's
genome, and the retroviral DNA is referred to as a provirus.
In most viruses, DNA is transcribed into RNA, and then RNA is translated into
protein.
Retroviruses function differently - their RNA is reverse-transcribed into DNA, which is
integrated into the host cell's genome (when it becomes a provirus), and then
undergoes the usual transcription and translational processes via the sequence:
RNA DNA RNA protein. This extends the fundamental process identified by
Francis Crick and James Watson, in which the sequence is: DNA RNA protein.
While transcription was classically thought to occur only from DNA to RNA, reverse
transcriptase transcribes RNA into DNA.
Because reverse transcription lacks the usual proofreading of DNA replication, a
retrovirus mutates very often. This enables the virus to grow resistant to antiviral
pharmaceuticals quickly, and impedes the development of effective vaccines and
inhibitors for the retrovirus.
The term "retro" in retrovirus refers to this reversal (making DNA from RNA) of the
central dogma of molecular biology.

Replication process of retroviruses

Entrance into the cell

Reverse transcription of one of the two RNA molecules

Integration of the DNA copy into the host genome

Transcription of viral DNA into mRNA and viral RNA

Encapsidation

Budding

Viroids

Viroids are plant pathogens that consist of a short stretch (a few hundred nucleobases) of highly
complementary, circular, single-stranded RNA without the protein coat that is typical for viruses they
are extracellular form of naked RNA.
Viroid RNA does not code for any protein. Totally depend on host function for its replication. The
replication mechanism involves RNA polymerase, an enzyme normally associated with synthesis of
messenger RNA from DNA, which instead catalyzes "rolling circle" synthesis of new RNA using the
viroid's RNA as template
Structure of viroids, showing how single-stranded circular RNA can form a seemingly double-stranded
structure by intrastrand base-pairing.
The first viroid to be identified was the potato spindle tuber viroid (PSTVd). Viroids use the higher plants
as hosts (potatoes, tomatoes, cucumbers) for their development: penetrate itself into plant cells nucleus
and begin to replicate.Viroids are distributed through seeds and pollen. Infected plants cannot develop
normally.
Prions
A prion is an infectious agent composed of protein in a misfolded form. The word prion, is derived from
the words protein and infection. Prions are responsible for the transmissible spongiform encephalopathies
in a variety of mammals, including bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, also known as "mad cow
disease") in cattle, Scrapie a prion didease occuring in sheep and goat, and CreutzfeldtJakob disease
(CJD) Fatal Familial Insomnia (FFI) in humans. All known prion diseases affect the structure of the brain
or other neural tissue and all are currently untreatable and universally fatal.

Prions propagate by transmitting a misfolded protein state. When a prion enters a healthy organism, it
induces existing, properly folded proteins to convert into the disease-associated, prion form; the prion acts
as a template to guide the misfolding of more protein into prion form; this triggers a spontaneous chain
reaction that produces large amounts of the prion form. All known prions induce the formation of beta
sheets instead of alfa helices in the tertiary protein structure. In 1997, the American scientist Stanley B.
Pruisner won the Nobel Prize for his pioneering works with prions.