Size and shape of viruses
Viral Replication
INTRODUCTION TO VIRUSES
Overview
This resource has an overview of the size,shape,replication and cultivation of viruses.
Introduction to Viruses
In 1898, Friedrich Loeffler and Paul Frosch found evidence that the cause of foot-and-mouth disease in livestock was an infectious particle smaller than any bacteria. This was the first clue to the nature of viruses, genetic entities that lie somewhere in the grey area between living and non-living states.
Viruses depend on the host cells that they infect to reproduce. When found outside of host cells, viruses exist as a protein coat or capsid, sometimes enclosed within a membrane. The capsid encloses either DNAor RNA which codes for the virus elements.
When it comes into contact with a host cell, a virus can insert its genetic material into its host, literally taking over the host's functions. An infected cell produces more viral protein and genetic material instead of its usual products. Some viruses may remain dormant inside host cells for long periods, causing no obvious change in their host cells (a stage known as the lysogenic phase). But when a dormant virus is stimulated, it enters the lytic phase: new viruses are formed, self-assemble, and burst out of the host cell, killing the cell and going on to infect other cells. The diagram below at right shows a virus that attacks bacteria, known as the lambda bacteriophage, which measures roughly 200 nanometers.
Viruses cause a number of diseases in eukaryotes. In humans, smallpox, the common cold, chickenpox, influenza, shingles, herpes, polio, rabies, Ebola, hanta fever, and AIDS are examples of viral diseases. Even some types of cancer -- though definitely not all -- have been linked to viruses.
Viruses themselves have no fossil record, but it is quite possible that they have left traces in the history of life. It has been hypothesized that viruses may be responsible for some of the extinctions seen in the fossil record (Emiliani, 1993). It was once thought by some that outbreaks of viral disease might have been responsible for mass extinctions, such as the extinction of the dinosaurs and other life forms. This theory is hard to test but seems unlikely, since a given virus can typically cause disease only in one species or in a group of related species. Even a hypothetical virus that could infect and kill all dinosaurs, 65 million years ago, could not have infected the ammonites or foraminifera that also went extinct at the same time.
On the other hand, because viruses can transfer genetic material between different species of host, they are extensively used in genetic engineering. Viruses also carry out natural "genetic engineering": a virus may incorporate some genetic material from its host as it is replicating, and transfer this genetic information to a new host, even to a host unrelated to the previous host. This is known as transduction, and in some cases it may serve as a means of evolutionary change -- although it is not clear how important an evolutionary mechanism transduction actually is.
Replication of viruses
As viruses are obligate intracellular pathogens they cannot replicate without the machinery and metabolism of a host cell. Although the replicative life cycle of viruses differs greatly between species and category of virus, there are six basic stages that are essential for viral replication.
1. Attachment: Viral proteins on the capsid or phospholipid envelope interact with specific receptors on the host cellular surface. This specificity determines the host range (tropism) of a virus.
2. Penetration: The process of attachment to a specific receptor can induce conformational changes in viral capsid proteins, or the lipid envelope, that results in the fusion of viral and cellular membranes. Some DNA viruses can also enter the host cell through receptor-mediated endocytosis.
3. Uncoating: The viral capsid is removed and degraded by viral enzymes or host enzymes releasing the viral genomic nucleic acid.
4. Replication: After the viral genome has been uncoated, transcription or translation of the viral genome is initiated. It is this stage of viral replication that differs greatly between DNA and RNA viruses and viruses with opposite nucleic acid polarity. This process culminates in the de novo synthesis of viral proteins and genome.
5. Assembly: After de novo synthesis of viral genome and proteins, which can be post-transrciptionally modified, viral proteins are packaged with newly replicated viral genome into new virions that are ready for release from the host cell. This process can also be referred to as maturation.
6. Virion release: There are two methods of viral release: lysis or budding. Lysis results in the death of an infected host cell, these types of viruses are referred to as cytolytic. An example is variola major also known as smallpox. Enveloped viruses, such as influenza A virus, are typically released from the host cell by budding. It is this process that results in the acquisition of the viral phospholipid envelope. These types of virus do not usually kill the infected cell and are termed cytopathic viruses.
After virion release some viral proteins remain within the host’s cell membrane, which acts as potential targets for circulating antibodies. Residual viral proteins that remain within the cytoplasm of the host cell can be processed and presented at the cell surface on MHC class-I molecules, where they are recognised by T cells.
Cultivation of viruses
- Viruses are obligate intracellular parasites so they depend on host for their survival.
- They cannot be grown in non-living culture media or on agar plates alone, they must require living cells to support their replication.
- The primary purposes of virus cultivation is:
- To isolate and identify viruses in clinical samples. Demonstration of virus in appropriate clinical specimens by culture establishes diagnosis of viral diseases.
- To do research on viral structure, replication, genetics and effects on host cell.
- To prepare viruses for vaccine production.
- Isolation of virus is always considered as a gold standard for establishing viral etiology of a disease.
- Most of the viruses can be cultivated in
- Experimental animals
- Embryonated eggs or
- Tissue culture.