Biology 1001A Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Mutation Rate, Thymidine, Heritability
30 Mar 2017
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Viruses: characteristics of viruses and why they are not generally considered to be alive . viruses cannot reproduce on their own + lack their own metabolic systems o they use their host cell for these functions. They are usually hidden inside host cells and require host cell machinery to replicate. Exceptions are viruses that contain things that don"t belong to host cells, such as reverse transcriptase: drugs can target stage(s) of life cycle. Ie. influenza consists of 8 separate pieces of rna - when 2 influenza viruses affect same individual different genome combinations changes protein coat in virus unrecognizable to antibodies. Since the viruses are hidden inside their host cell most of the time, there is no viral products for the drugs to target: whether viruses are always pathogenic (causes disease). No, viruses are not always pathogenic and may prevent pathogenic viruses from infecting the cells.
