Introduction to Virology

Question 1

What is the most common cause of human illness?

Answer 1

Viruses

Question 2

Capsid

Answer 2

Viral protein coat which surrounds its nucleic acid (all viruses have these)

Question 3

Capsomer

Answer 3

Oligomers of subunits that make up a virus capsid. Geometry of capsomers is a property of the virus (icosahedral or helical)

Question 4

Nucleocapsid

Answer 4

Capsid plus nucleic acid

Question 5

Envelope

Answer 5

Lipid bilayer surrounding virus, comes from host, not all viruses have an envelope

Question 6

What effect does taking the envelope off an envelope virus have?

Answer 6

It makes the virus non-infectous

Question 7

Icosahedran

Answer 7

20-sided solid figure of equilateral triangles, is one conformation of viral capsids (other is helical)

Question 8

What enzyme is required to make capsomeres assemble into a capsid?

Answer 8

None. They self-assemble by thermodynamics

Question 9

How do we classify viruses with helical symmetry?

Answer 9

By pitch (number of subunits per turn)

Question 10

What is a viral envelope composed of and what is the source of each component?

Answer 10

Virus-coded envelope proteins and host-derived lipid bilayer

Question 11

Immunizing someone to a virus creates antibodies to what?

Answer 11

Viral attachment proteins (which allow the virus to enter a cell)

Question 12

How do we measure a patients resistance to a given virus?

Answer 12

Enzyme-Mediated Antibody Binding (EIA) of their antibodies to the virus