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CHAPTER
Chapter 8 2
Viruses
VIRUSES
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Chapter Outline
2.1
Discovery
2.4
Multiplication of Bacteriophages
2.2
Classification of Viruses
2.5
2.3
Structure of Viruses
2.6
VIRUSES
Viruses are a unique group of "Biological entities"
known to infect every type of cell, including those
of bacteria, algae, fungi, Protozoa, plants and
animals; Remember that you have already gone
through an introductory account of viruses in your
first year course.
Viruses are very different from other organisms.
They are not composed of cells and cannot be seen
under a light microscope. A virus particle contains
a single type of nucleic acid, either DNA or RNA.
The nucleic acid is enclosed in a protein coat and
the coat is sometimes covered in an envelope of
lipids, proteins and carbohydrates. Viruses do not
exhibit most of the life processes of a cell, but
maintain genetic continuity through multiplication
and undergo mutations. Thus, they are certainly more
than inert lifeless molecules. Viruses are best
described as infectious particles.
Viruses are obligate intracellular parasites i.e.
they cannot multiply unless they invade a specific
host cell and instruct its genetic and metabolic
machinery to make and release daughter or progeny
viruses. In this process, they destroy the host cells
causing serious damage and diseases in humans,
plants and animals. The study of viruses is known
as Virology.
2.1 Discovery
Viruses have been victimizing mankind from
ancient times, causing many diseases in humans and
also in economically useful plants and animals. An
identifiable agent responsible for these diseases
was not known, even after the proposition of the
germ theory of disease. In 1892 for the first time,
the Russian pathologist Dmitri Iwanowski, while
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properties of viruses
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They are obligate intracellular parasites, i.e, they
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around a central hollow space of 4 nm
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Lysogenic phase
Lytic phase
The host DNA is not hydrolysed during lysogenic The host DNA is often hydrolysed in the lytic
phase
phase.
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