BIOL488 Lecture Notes - T Helper Cell, Simian Immunodeficiency Virus, Regulatory T Cell
7 Feb 2013
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Document Summary
Like all viruses, hiv is an intracellular parasite that cannot reproduce on its own. It invades specific types of cells in the human immune system. It uses enzymatic machinery and energy of these cells to make copies of itself, killing the host cells in the process: figure 1. 5 (pg. Hiv initiates its replication phase by latching onto two proteins on the surface of a host cell: hiv binds to two surface proteins on the target cell called cd4 and coreceptor. This binding fuses the virion"s envelope with the host"s cell membrane and spills the contents of the virion into the cell. These contents include the virus"s diploid genome (two copies of a single-stranded. Rna molecule) and 3 proteins: reverse transcriptase- transcribes the virus"s rna genome into dna, integrase- splices the dna genome into the host cell"s genome, protease- which plays a role in the preparation of new viral proteins.
