Virology is the field of science that investigates biological viruses.
- It is a field of microbiology that focuses on the location, composition, classification, and evolution of bacteria.
- It also looks at how they affect the host’s physiology and immunology, how they spread disease, and how they invade and exploit host cells for reproduction.
Characteristics and Classifications about Virology
- After the initial operational definition of a virus as a filterable agent was published.
- Efforts were undertaken to pinpoint the characteristics of viruses that set them apart from other microbes.
- For this purpose, the fact that all viruses are obligate intracellular molecular parasites serves as their only distinguishing characteristic.
- The inability of viruses to reproduce via binary fission, an asexual reproduction technique in which pre-existing cells split into two identical daughter cells, is a second inviolate characteristic of viruses.
- The way that viruses reproduce is like an assembly line, with various components coming together to form new viral particles.
- Virus families differ in the chemical makeup of their viruses.
- The virion is made up of viral structural proteins and nucleic acid for the simplest of viruses.
- However when dealing with enveloped viruses, the issue becomes more complicated.
- The latter forms of viruses develop by budding through various cellular membranes that have been altered by the viral proteins‘ insertion.
- DNA or RNA, single or double-stranded molecules, complete molecules, or fragments can all be used as viral genetic material.
- Viruses are complicated biological lifeless materials; they are not alive. They are incapable of reproducing or evolving and lack all sources of energy and carbon metabolism. Only cells can proliferate and allow viruses to evolve.
Every day, the world produces more than 1016 genomes of the human immunodeficiency virus. As a result, thousands of viral variants that are resistant to every combination of antiviral drugs in use or under development appear by chance every day.
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