Microbiology and Immunology 2500A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Rous Sarcoma Virus, Exponential Growth, Retrovirus

• School: Western University
• Department: Microbiology and Immunology
• Course: Microbiology and Immunology 2500A/B
• Professor: Stephanie Kelly

Document Summary

Main objective: to understand the basics of an infection cycle and the virological methods utilized to study it. Other objectives: infectious cycle over view; basic viral replication kinetics; lab hosts utilized to study infectious cycle; how to assess infectious cycle; cytopathic effects; difference between infectivity and physical measurements. The first step is the receptors outside of the virus must recognize the specific receptors of a host cell. Once recognition occurs, the virus can enter the host cell as an obligate intracellular parasite. It then must remove its capsid and expose its genome. When the genome is exposed, either: more genome can be synthesized (for virions later), or 2) proteins synthesized by the viral genome are synthesized by host machinery. A fully assembled virus is called a virion and it contains all the proteins and nucleic acids necessary for the next infectious cycle. These virions bud and become vehicles which transmit viruses from host to host cell.