What happens when viruses and bacteria mutate?

Answer 1

It's a bad thing when a virus mutates because when it mutates it becomes immune to the Anti-Virus humans have created. Thus all medicine for the uninvolved virus is completely useless and people would have to create another Anti-Virus to fight the new threat.

Answer 2

A mutation is a change in the DNA code of an organism. Most of the time this change is not an advantage and as a result they are weakened so that after they reproduce they are weaker than before the mutation. However sometimes a change can occur which makes the virus or bacterium more sucessful in its environment, for example the HIV virus can mutate so rapidly that often drugs used to treat is become ineffective after only a few months of use. This is because the drugs target very specific parts of the virus by binding to them and if the mutation has caused the structure of the virus to change so the drug no longer binds properly this virus will out compete any other non mutated viruses in a patient body.

Answer 3

Mutation changes the structure of the virus. When this happens, a person could get sick again. An example - the common cold. You may have had one a month ago, and your immune system makes antibodies against the virus and just when you are recovering, the virus changes its form and structure. Your body needs to create new antibodies to fight the changed virus.

Answer 4

Most viruses are either a single stand of RNA or DNA. Since they don't have two strands paired as our cells have, they have no way to proof read the DNA or RNA and the mistakes (mutations) are not corrected.

Answer 5

They mutate the way that our own genes mutate, by mistakes in the replication of the genes.
Many types mutate more often than others. This includes RNA viruses and single strand DNA viruses. Neither have a "copy reader" to make sure that there are no mistakes.
Double stranded DNA viruses (and our own DNA) have these copy readers so that fewer mistakes are made.

Answer 6

To survive, viruses must adapt or evolve, changing its surface proteins enough to trick the host cell into allowing it to attach.
Viruses that replicate through DNA use the same mechanisms the host cell uses to create its own DNA, a process that includes a kind of "proof-reading" of the genetic material being copied. This means mutations occur more slowly.

RNA viruses replicate without a similar proofreading activity, and as a result, errors occur. Its these errors that allow RNA viruses, such as influenza and HIV, to mutate rapidly from host cell to host cell, and make it difficult for vaccines and natural immunities to keep up and prepare for new strains of the virus.

Answer 7

a virus can adapt to its surroundings and environment verey quickly its simple a virus really cant be destroyed viruses are every in the world so a virus can change or mutate very often

Answer 8

The error prone replication of viruses in host cell is a cause. Additionally, host enzymes such as deaminases(APOBEC), can edit the virus genome to induce mutations.