BIO SCI 94 Lecture 13: Viruses

• School: UC-Irvine
• Department: Biological Sciences
• Course: BIO SCI 94
• Professor: Robin Bush

Document Summary

Enter a host cell, take over its biosynthetic machinery, and use that machinery to manufacture a new generation of viruses. Outside of host cells, viruses simply exist. Viruses are not alive because they are dependent on their host cell to satisfy the five attributes of life. Each type of virus infects a specific unicellular species or cell type in a multicellular species nearly all organisms examined thus far are parasitized by at least one kind of virus. Dna or rna; can be single or double stranded. Extensive- synthesis of atp, reduced carbon compounds, vitamins, lipids, nucleic acids, etc. Viruses promote lateral gene transfer (pick up cellular genes and shuttle them from one organism to another. An epidemic is a disease that rapidly affects a large number of individuals over a widening area. A pandemic is an epidemic that is worldwide is scope. A strain of virus is virulent if it causes severe disease.