BIOL 2011L Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Retrovirus, X-Ray Crystallography, Virus Classification
Document Summary
A major branch of virology is virus classification. Viruses can be classified according to the host cell they infect: animal viruses, plant viruses, fungal viruses, and bacteriophages (viruses infecting bacterium, which include the most complex viruses). Another classification uses the geometrical shape of their capsid (often a helix or an icosahedron) or the virus"s structure (e. g. presence or absence of a lipid envelope). Viruses range in size from about 30 nm to about 450 nm, which means that most of them cannot be seen with light microscopes. The shape and structure of viruses has been studied by electron microscopy, nmr spectroscopy, and x-ray crystallography. The most useful and most widely used classification system distinguishes viruses according to the type of nucleic acid they use as genetic material and the viral replication method they employ to coax host cells into producing more viruses: Dna viruses (divided into double-stranded dna viruses and single-stranded dna viruses),
