BIOL442 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Tobacco Mosaic Virus, Kikwit, Rabies Virus
Document Summary
A universal system for classifying viruses, and unified taxonomy, has been established by the international committee on. Species (eg. tobacco mosaic virus), 1950 so far. For example, the ebola virus isolated from kikwit is classified as: Many virus families are not exclusive to a single host range, as are bacteriophage families. All helical viruses are rna (none are dna) and are enveloped. Of helicals, only corona and roni are +ssrna, rest are -ssrna. All dsrna and +ssrna viruses, except corona and roni, are icosahedral. All vertebrate dna viruses are icosahedral except for pox (complex) The genome architecture commonly used to classify viruses are: ssdna viruses dsdna viruses (+) ssrna viruses dsrna viruses (-) ssrna viruses dsrna viruses. If viral rna can serve as mrna, then it is positive-stranded or (+) sense. If viral rna must first be transcribed to produce mrna, which will be translated to produce a viral protein, then it is negative - stranded or (-) sense.