Chapter 2 – Viruses – summary notes

Viruses
Characteristics:
1. Viruses are tiny infectious particles.
2. Viruses consist of nucleic acid and protein coat called capsid.
3. Some viruses have an outer membranous envelope containing proteins, lipids,
carbohydrates, and traces of metals.
4. Viruses are very small with size of 20 - 400nm.
5. Viruses are not cellular.
6. Viruses cannot perform metabolic activities independently.
7. Viruses contain either DNA or RNA, not both.
8. Viruses can reproduce in their living host cells only.
9. The common shapes of viruses are helical, polyhedral or combination of both.
10. Viruses have lytic or lysogenic reproductive cycle.

Lytic Reproductive Cycle:

The viruses that have lytic reproductive cycle are called virulent virus.
Lysogenic Reproductive Cycle:
The viruses that have lysogenic reproductive cycle are called temperate virus.

Prophage is the viral genome that integrated into the host bacterial DNA.
Lysogenic cells - bacterial cells that carry prophages.
Lysogenic conversion - bacterial cells containing certain temperate viruses (prophage) that exhibit
new properties .
eg. 1. Bacterium Corynebacterium diphtheriae which causes diphtheria.
2. Bacterium Clostridium botulinum which causes botulism.
These bacteria will not cause the diseases unless containing the viruses.

Animal Viruses
-Hundreds of different viruses infect human and other animals.
-Most virus cannot survive outside a living host cell, so their survival depends on their being
transmitted from animal to animal.
Attachment:
Viruses have attachment protein on their surface that allow them adhere to complementary
receptor sites on the host cell.
Eg: Adenoviruses have fibers that project from the capsid.

Adenovirus

Viruses that cause herpes, influenza and rabies have a lipoprotein envelope with projecting
glycoprotein spikes.

Influenza virus

Receptor sites on the host cell vary with each species and sometimes with each type of tissue..
Eg: HIV attach to the CD4 receptor site on the helper T cells only.
Penetration:
Viruses enter the host cell by endocytosis or membrane fusion:
1. Endocytosis
The plasma membrane of the animal cell invaginates to form a membrane-bounded
vesicle that contains the virus.
2. Membrane fusion
Some enveloped viruses fuse with the animal cell’s plasma membrane. The viral capsid
and nucleic acid are both released into the animal cell.

Replication & Assembly:

In DNA viruses, the viral DNA enters the host cell’s nucleus and replicated.
- The viral DNA is transcribed into mRNA.
- The host ribosomes are directed by the mRNA to synthesis viral proteins.
- New viruses are assembled.
In most RNA viruses, RNA replication and transcription take place with the help of RNA-dependent
RNA polymerase.
In retroviruses, reverse transcriptase catalyzes the synthesis of ssDNA complementary to the viral
RNA.
The ssDNA dsDNA and enter the nucleus.
Enzyme integrase integrates the dsDNA into the host DNA.
When activated, the viral DNA uses host enzymes to transcribe viral RNA.
Viral RNA leaves the nucleus.
Viral proteins are synthesized on the host ribosomes.
New viruses are assembled.
[Retroviruses : RNA viruses that have a DNA polymerase called reverse transcriptase used to transcribe the
RNA genome into a DNA intermediate. eg. Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)]

Release:
Viruses that do not have an outer envelope exit by cell lysis.
-The plasma membrane ruptures, releasing many new virues.
Enveloped viruses receive their lipoprotein envelopes by picking up a fragment of the host plasma
membrane as they leave the infected cell.

Examples of disease caused by animal viruses:

Hog cholera
Foot-and-mouth disease (EV 71)
Canine distemper (in dogs and cats)
Swine influenza
Feline leukemia
Common colds (human)
Chickenpox
Mumps
Rubella
Rabies
Hepatitis
Plant Viruses
-Spread among plants by insects such as aphids and leafhoppers as they feed on plant tissues.
-Plant viruses are inherited by way of infected seeds or by asexual propagation and spreads through
the plant body through plasmodesmata.
-The genome of plant viruses consists of RNA.
-Symptoms of plant infection: reduced plant size, spots, streaks or mottled patterns on leaves,
flowers or fruits.
-Infected crops usually produce lower yields.
-No cure, usually infected plants are burnt.

Viroids
- much smaller than a virus.
- has no protein.
- consists of a very short strand of RNA (250 – 400 nucleotides).
- Viroids are copied by host RNA polymerases.
- cause a variety of plant diseases and may also infect animals.
- generally found within the host cell nucleus and may interfere with gene regulation.

Prions
-proteinaceous infectious particle, consists of 208 amino acids.
- have no nucleic acids.
-It causes a number of fatal degenerative brain diseases / transmissible spongiform
encephalopathies (TSEs) including bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE also known as "mad
cow disease") in cattle and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) in humans.
- All known prion diseases affect the structure of the brain or other neural tissue, and all are
currently untreatable and fatal.

Differences between viruses, viroids & prions:

Viruses Viroids Prions
Protein √ X √ (208 amino acids)
Nucleic acid √ √ (250-400 nucleotides X
of RNA)
Diseases Cause plant & animal Cause mainly plant Cause mainly animal
disease diseases diseases.

The End & Happy Reading