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How do viruses infect eukaryotic cells?

Updated: 8/10/2023
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13y ago

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In bacterial viruses, the protein coat remains outside the cell and only the viral genome is injected into the cell. In animal viruses, the virus attaches to specific receptors on the plasma membrane and the whole virus is taken in by endocytosis (pinocytosis or phagocytosis). The viral envelope (if present) is stripped off inside the cell, and the separation of the viral genome from the protein coat then takes place. Not all infections of animal host cells result in lysis of the cell (as in the lytic cycle of bacteriophages). In the case of enveloped animal viruses, the viruses are released by a budding process. The process is slow and the host cell may remain alive and continue to release viruses over a long period of time. In some cases the virus may become dormant (though remaining infectious) inside the host cell, appearing spontaneously at a later time. (Unlike temperate bacteriophages that integrate their DNA into the genome of the host cell as provirus, animal viruses do not usually integrate into the animal genome during the latent stage.) Finally, some animal viruses may cause transformation of host cells to the cancerous state.

--Differences between bacteriophages and viruses that infect eukaryotic cells

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13y ago
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13y ago

Lysogenic

lytic

Because viruses are acellular and do not use ATP, they must utilize the machinery and metabolism of the host cell to reproduce. For this reason, viruses are called obligate intracellular parasites. Before a virus has entered a host cell, it is called a virion - a package of viral genetic material. Virions can be passed from host to host either through direct contact or through a vector, or carrier. Inside the organism, the virus can enter a cell in various ways. Bacteriophages-bacterial viruses-attach to the cell wall surface in specific places. Once attached, enzymes make a small hole in the cell wall, and the virus injects its DNA into the cell. Other viruses (such as HIV) enter the host via endocytosis, the process whereby cells take in material from the external environment. After entering the cell, the virus's genetic material begins the destructive process of taking over the cell and forcing it to produce new viruses.

There are three different ways genetic information contained in a viral genome can be reproduced. The form of genetic material contained in the viral capsid, the protein coat that surrounds the nucleic acid, determines the exact replication process. Some viruses have DNA, which once inside the host cell is replicated by the host along with its own DNA. Then, there are two different replication processes for viruses containing RNA. In the first process, the viral RNA is directly copied using an enzyme called RNA replicase. This enzyme then uses that RNA copy as a template to make hundreds of duplicates of the original RNA. A second group of RNA-containing viruses, called the retroviruses, uses the enzyme reverse transcriptase to synthesize a complementary strand of DNA so that the virus's genetic information is contained in a molecule of DNA rather than RNA. The viral DNA can then be further replicated using the resources of the host cell.

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14y ago

Viruses have tiny "keyholes" that allow the cell to let the virus through.

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14y ago

they enter the cell and lay eggs and then they burst out of the cell and move on to another one. But that is not that one virus doing that though

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Q: How do viruses infect eukaryotic cells?
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