Biology 1001A Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Zoonosis, Thymidine, Nucleoside
26 Oct 2018
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Document Summary
Zoonotic diseases: diseases that originate in other species. Long standing or permanently established disease i(cid:374) (cid:858)host(cid:859) species: tend not to be harmful in host species, endemic. Hiv is a zoonotic disease: from chimpanzees, siv is endemic in chimpanzees, became an epidemic disease (then pandemic) as. Proof of zoonotic disease from genetic code. Viruses are the (cid:858)vines(cid:859) that go around the tree, since they are not alive but they depend on all types of life. Anti-viral drugs are harmful to the host cell: si(cid:374)ce a virus(cid:859) fu(cid:374)ctio(cid:374) depends on host cell. Retroviruses disobey central dogma of molecular biology: dna rna protein is normal, retrovirus transcribes rna into dna. Hiv lifecycle: virion (viral particle) enters host cell, reverse transcriptase viral dna, integrase splices viral dna into host dna, transcription, translation, new versions assemble and enter circulation, immune system collapses. Reverse transcription is very mistake prone: not much proof-reading, leads to a lot of variation, hence no vaccine.
