Herpesvirus Flashcards
What is herpesvirus?
- family of dsDNA viruses
- infect a wide range of species
- 8 cause disease in humans some life theratening
What is the structure of a herpesvirus particle?
- core contains a genome
- this is surrounded by a proteinaceous core which is surrounded by a complex icosahedral capsid
- a layer of tegument proteins resides outside the capsid
- envelope on the outside
What is the tegument?
- protein filled region
- when the virus attaches all the tegument proteins are released into the cell and can begin to have effects on the cell immediately after entry
What are the 2 herpes lifecycles?
- lytic replication involves the production of infectious virions, cell destruction and transmission
- latent infection allows virus to persist in cells indefinitely without producing many proteins
What are the 3 families of herpesvirus?
- alpha
- beta
- gamma
What are the characteristics of alpha herpesviruses? Give an example of one
- wide host range
- spread rapidly and cause efficient cell death in culture
- latently infects sensory ganglia
- e.g. HSV1/2
What are the characteristics of Beta herpesviruses? Give an example of one
- more limited host range
- slow cell to cell spread
- CMV
What are the characteristics of Gamma herpesviruses? Give an example of one
- most limited host range
- latently infect B or T cells
- EBV
What is HSV1?
- herpes simplex virus 1
- alpha herpes virus
- causes encephalitis and necorsis of the temporal lobe
Describe the genome of a herpes simplex virus
- composed of 2 covalently linked segments flanked by inverted repeats
- short and long segments
- repeats allow rearrangements of the regions into 4 different isomers
- 80 gene products 40 of which arent essential for replication
- lots of unspliced genes
- very complex genome
Where do herpes simplex viruses replicate when in lytic life cycles?
- nucleus of epithelial cells
- infectious virions are produced and cell destruction occurs
Describe the latent stage of a herpes virus infection
- reversible and non-productive
- infects immune privileged sensory ganglia
- can be life long
- to maintain a latent state the virus must evade host responses and limit its gene expression
Describe the lytic replication of herpes simplex virus
- attachment, fusion and release of tegument into the cell
- nucleocapsid enters the nucleus via microtubule transport and releases the viral DNA
- genome is replicated by the rolling circle method of replication
- then gets enveloped and released
How does herpes simplex virus enter the host cell?
- interaction of viral glycoproteins with host cell receptors
- gB and gC bind cell surface proteoglycans
- gD binds further herpes entry mediators to stabilise attachment
- pH dependent fusion of the viral envelope with the plasma membrane
How are herpes simplex virus genes expressed during lytic infection?
- tightly reagulated
- IE, E and L genes expressed in a temporal fashion where the expression of the previous set is required for expression of the nect
- interrupting one stage means the later ones arent expressed