Midterm 1 Material Flashcards
Give three reasons why we study viruses and sub-viral agents and their respective importance
- medical, veterinary and agricultural importance
- some are very common (e.g. cold)
- some are highly lethal (e.g. HIV/AIDS)
- some cause dread, major disruption, economic loss (e.g. Sars-CoV2)
- some infect animals and plants leading to econmic loss (e.g. foot mouth disease) - source of fundamental info about biology and medicine
- flow of genetic information
- mechanisms of DNA rep., transcription, translation, RNA splicing, and protein localization
- cell cycle and cancer
- immunology - industrial and therapeutic applications
- recombination DNA tech (e.g. using reverse transcription to make RNA into DNA)
- gene therapy
- modulation of the immune system
- treatment of cancer
Give three reasons why viruses are distinct from other biological entities & name which one is the most important factor
- obligate intracellular parasites
- replicate by assembly (most important factor)
- depend of HC for energy, metabolic precursors, translation machinery
What is the viral genome comprised of?
DNA or RNA, but never both
What is the capsid?
protective protein shell that consists of smaller subunits, capsomeres that are arranged in a symmetrical pattern
What is the viral envelope?
- lipid bilayer which contains viral proteins (some viruses, not all) where the membrane belongs to the host membrane
- without the envelope, the virus is no longer infectious (given that it is an enveloped virus)
What are the eight steps in the viral life cycle? Name and describe each step
- attatchment - viral attatchment proteins bind to a specific cellular receptor
- penetration - getting across the cell membrane
- uncoating - release of the viral genome from the capsid and delivery to the correct cellular location
- transcription - production of viral mRNA
- translation - production of structural and non-structural proteins
- genome replication - production of multiple progeny virus genomes
- assembly - assembling genomes and structural proteins into progeny virions
- release - release of progeny virions by cell lysis (non-env) or budding (env.)
What three factors classify viruses as biological systems?
- contain a nucleic acid which replicates
- encode more than one protein
- undergo mutations and natural selection (e.g. emergence of covid-19 variants)`
What do all viruses rely on the HC for?
- biosynthetic precursors (a.a and nt)
- energy
- machinery to translate mRNA
What do some viruses depend on the HC for?
- enzymes that replicate the viral genome
- enzymes that transcribe viral mRNAs
Which viruses have been associated with humans since specification, and how do we know that humans have been associated with viruses since speciation?
viruses: herpesvirus and endogenous retroviruses
how: 10% of the human genome consists of retrovirus proviral genomes
Which viruses have been recognized since antiquity, and what is one piece of evidence?
viruses: polio and smallpox
evidence: ancient Egyptian tablets depicting an injury caused by polio
Which viruses have been associated with humans more recently?
HIV, ebola, sars-cov2
which viruses are zoonotic and when did they jump?
HIV-1 -> early 20th century
Sars-Cov2 -> 2019
How did the move from hunter/gatherer societies to agricultural societies effect viral spread?
increased population density -> greater number of hosts for viruses
What are the properties of a virus that can maintain stablitity in a small population vs that of a large population? Name an example of each
small population: viruses that establish life-long latent infections (e.g. herpesvirus)
large population: acute viruses (e.g smallpox)
Why did variolization come about?
Life long immunity from smallpox was evident which led to deliberate immunization because the mortality rate of variolization was much smaller than that of getting smallpox without variolization
What is variolization?
deliberate infection with variola virus to generate mild disease with protective immunity
What are Koch’s postulates?
- the organism must always be present in diseased people or animals
- it must be isolated as a pure culture in vitro, say by growth on nutrient agar plates
- the isolated organism must cause the same disease when injected into a healthy host
- the organism must be reproducibly isolated from the diseased test hosts
How did vaccination arise?
Jenner used cowpox scabs instead of smallpox scabs to deliberately immunize people, which was just as effective as variolization but was much safer
What are the three revolutionary changes in our understanding of infectious diseases?
- Pasteur discovered that cellular life forms do no arise by spontaneous generation
- Koch discovered that infectious diseases are caused by bacteria
- Beijernik established the existence of acellular infectious agents (viruses)
What were Beijernik’s major observations of the agent that disfigured tobacco leaves?
- agent passed through filters that retained the smallest known bacteria
- the filtrate could be diluted, but with loss of infective strength
- strength was increased by passage through intact leaves, but not by incubation in extracts of uninfected leaves
- agent is capable of replication, but only within living host cells
Name and describe two other early examples of “filterable” agents besides Beijernik
Loeffler and Froth: foot and mouth disease of cattle
Reed: yellow fever in humans
What is the differences between segmented and continuous viral genomes? Name an example for each.
Segmented: multiple nucleic acid segments that make up the entire genome (e.g. influenza A)
Continuous: one nucleic acid sequence (e.g. Sars-Cov2)
What is the purpose of the capsid?
- Encases and protects the genome
- mediated binding to the HC and entry of naked viruses