Exam 1 Flashcards
What are Koch’s postulates?
- The pathogen must be present in every case of the disease
- The pathogen must be isolated from the host with the disease and grown in pure culture
- The specific disease must be reproduced when a pure culture of the pathogen is inoculated into a healthy susceptible host
- The pathogen must be recoverable from the experimentally infected host
Who created the smallpox vaccine? When?
Edward Jenner
1700s
What is the tobacco mosaic virus?
A virus that spoils the tobacco plant
What did Adolf Mayer and Martinus Beijerinck do?
They studied the tabacco plant and discovered it was not a bacteria nor a fungus
What experiment did Mayer and Beijerinck do on the tobacco plant?
Mayer and Beijerinck
1. took the leaves and ground them up
2. extracted the juice
3. smeared it on a leaf of a healthy plant
4. healthy plant got sick
This follows Koch’s postulates without realizing it
How did Mayer of Beijerinck do to determine it wasn’t a fungus or bacteria that was harming the tobacco plant?
Filtration Take a ceramic with small holes and run the plant leaf juice through it and then tested to see if it could still make the plant sick. Removed any fungi = still contagious Removed any bacteria = still contagious Therefore it must be something else
What is the difference between a pathogen and a toxin? (2)
A toxin isn’t living and a virus is. This effects
- Transmissibility (a virus is easily transferred from one organism to another)
- Maintenance of Potency (a virus will maintain potency no matter how many times it is transferred, but a toxin will decrease in toxicity.)
It took the invention of what instrument to visual viruses?
Electron Microscope
Why can we learn about our own cells using viruses?
Since we are the host for viruses they must conform to our bodies and our machinery
What is life?
Life is the condition that distinguishes active animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, functional activity, and continual change preceding death -OED
What are some reasons (3) that make the claim “viruses are living things” a little grey
- Some viruses can be crystallized and kept in this form for a very long time
- Viruses are only active after they enter a living cell
- They lack all the metabolic processes needed to generate energy and the machinery to make proteins
Did viruses evolve out of ‘rogue’ pieces of DNA? Or did they originate independent of their host cells and only later acquire infectivity? What kind of evidence exists for this?
- Virus First Hypothesis
- Reduction Hypothesis
- Escape Hypothesis
https: //www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3575434/
What are the 5 main structures of a generic virus?
- Envelope
- Tegument
- Capsid
- Glycoprotein ‘spikes’
- Genome (DNA or RNA)
What are viruses (definition)?
Subcellular, infectious agents that are obligate intracellular parasites
What is a virion?
A mature, extracellular virus
What is a genome?
An organism’s complete set of genetic instructions
What is the nucleocapsid?
A protein coat containing the genome
What is the envelope?
A lipid envelope that surrounds the nucleocapsid
Where are glycoproteins located?
They are located in the envelope and are transmembrane
What is the most likely shape of a virus? Why?
An icosahedron
It is the closest viruses can get to a sphere and a sphere is the most efficient volume to surface ratio
How many sides does an icosahedron have?
20 sides
What are capsomeres?
Repeating protein subunits that make up the capsid
What is the drawback of an icosahedron?
The genome is limited in size
What is the function of a virus particle? (ie why not have a naked genome) (4)
- Protects the genome from being degraded
- Aids in host recognition, binding, and entering
- Fidelity; viral genome recognition and collection
- Self-assembly
What are some of the uniform structures viruses will take? (2) Why do they take these structures?
- Helical Nucleocapsid (limitless genome)
- Icosahedron (best volume to SA ratio)
The capsid is usually regular due to the small number of repeating proteins
What is the capsid?
The protein coat of the virus which is made up of capsomeres
What are the capsomere encoded by?
They are encoded for by the viral genome.
Constitute some of the structural genes (late-stage)
Are viral genomes limited or unlimited in their coding capacity? What is the implication of this?
They are limited in their coding capacity
Virons may be formed using a limited number of different proteins
Why is it that capsids can self-assemble? (3)
- Small amount of genetic information
- Assembly and disassembly are low energy processes
- It is self-correcting
Talk me through the process of self-assembly
- Virus infect the cell
- Virus begins replication of the genome
- In the late stage genes = formation of capsomeres
- Caposmeres have an RNA binding domain that recognizes the encapsidation sequence of the viral RNA and binds to it
- The capsomeres then “click” into place with one another due to affinities and nucleation events and create the capsid
- Some = proteolysis of the capsid proteins into their mature form triggers assembly
How does Palanoma Virus Vaccine work?
Deliver an empty capsid
The body recognizes the capsid from the glycoproteins and develops antibodies
But there is no viral genome to actually make you sick
What do packaging signals do?
Direct incorporation of viral genomes into virions
What are core proteins?
Accompany the viral genome inside the capsid
Possible examples: RDRP, Reverse Transcriptase
What are scaffolding proteins?
They help in virion assembly but are not incorporated into the mature virion
How is the tobacco mosaic virus organized?
Tobacco Mosaic Virus is organized as a Helical nucleocapsid
How many subunits does an icosahedron have? How many types of symmetry?
20 faces
60 subunits
2-fold (at vertex), 3-fold (at triangle), and 5-fold symmetry (at axis)
Viruses can vary in size, what are the 4 common sizes?
- 20 nm (parovirus)
- 80 nm (adenovirus)
- 200 nm (phycodavirus)
- 500 nm (Mimivirus)
Can viruses be infected by other viruses?
Yes, if they are large enough they can be infected by another smaller virus
What is the minimum number of subunits required to make an icosahedron shape?
60
Viruses can differ in two ways when it comes to capsids, what are they?
- Size of capsomeres
2. Variety of capsomeres
How many vertices, faces, and edges does an icosahedron have?
12 vertices
60 faces
30 edges
What is the dumbbell shape? What is an example of a virus that has this shape?
Ovoid particle with a dumbbell-shaped (constricts in the middle) nucleocapsid
Pox Virus
What is the bullet shape? What is an example of a virus that has this shape?
Elongated end and rounded end
Coiled helix
Ex. Rhabdovirus
What is the envelope of enveloped viruses made of? What do they contain?
Lipid bilayer membranes
They contain viral glycoprotiens
How is budding driven in enveloped viruses?
Budding is driven by interactions between viral protiens
How is fusion driven in enveloped viruses?
Fusion is driven by the fact that the lipids on the viral envelope and the lipids of the host membrane are both hydrophobic
What property of enveloped viruses are we exploiting when we wash our hands?
When we wash our hands we use detergent (soap) which is are long chains of hydrophobic carbons. The hydrophobic carbons fuse with the viral envelope and ruin its membrane
What is intercalation?
The process of fusing two membranes or inserting something into the membrane
What property of enveloped viruses can also be exploited?
Enveloped viruses cannot be dried out because the membrane will fall apart therefore they survive better in more humid environments
What are fomites? How long can enveloped fomites last? How long can non-enveloped fomites last?
Fomites are virus particles left on nonliving things
Enveloped viruses can only last hours
Nonevneloped viruses can last years
What is an example of a non-enveloped virus?
Adenovirus = common cold
How are non-enveloped viruses often shed?
Non -enveloped viruses are often shed in feces
Which is more fragile, an enveloped or non-enveloped virus?
An enveloped virus
Define tropism
The affinity of a virus for a particular cell type
It is determined by the type of receptor on the cell
What can determine an enveloped virus’s tropism?
The glycoproteins embedded in the envelope
What is hemagglutinattion? What is responsible for the hemagglutination properties of enveloped viruses?
Hemagglutination is an assay to determine the antibodies of the virus
It is determined by the glycoproteins embedded in the envelope
What mediates the fusion of the viral membrane with the cell membrane for enveloped viruses?
Glycoproteins embedded in the envelope
What are often the primary targets of the immune system of enveloped viruses?
Glycoproteins embedded in the envelope
Can glycoproteins possess enzymatic activity? If so, provide an example
Yes
Neuraminidase of the orthomyxoviruses
What is an example of an enveloped virus?
Herpes simplex virus Type I
What is the shape of the adenovirus?
Three copies of the capsomere protein (hexon protein) come together to form the hexon
12 vertices with projections of long fibers that end in spherical extensions used for viral attachment to host cells
What about bacteriophages make them unconventional in shape? What are their three additional appendages?
Icosahedral head with a helical tail
- Baseplates
- Collars
- Tail Fibers
What is the tropism of bacteriophages?
Bacteria