Reproduction in Virus
Virus can reprouce through two ways- Lysogenic Cycle and the Lytic cycle. The process used by the majority of the virus to reproduce is known as Lytic Cycle. During Lytic infection, the virus penetrates the host cell, multiplies, and causes the cell to lyse or burst.
The steps of the Lytic cycle are:
- Attachment: Initially, the virus starts the attack by attaching itself to the host cell.
- Penetration: The genetic material is injected into the host cell by the virus.
- Genome Replication and Gene expression: The host cell’s metabolism gets under the control of the virus. Thus, the host cell’s organelles start producing new proteins and nucleic acids.
- Assembly: In this stage, nucleic acid and protein are assembled to form a new virus.
- Release: The attacked cell bursts due to viral enzymes, and the replicas of the virus are released to other surrounding cells to make them infected as well.
In a Lysogenic cycle, the virus stays in a dormant phase and does not immediately attack the body. It keeps replicating silently within the body. Only in case of triggers like stress, or temperature change, the cells burst and the virus particles spread throughout the body.
Virus in Biology
Virus is an infectious agent of the submicroscopic size that cannot survive alone. Hence, it infects cells of other living organisms and replicates itself using the components of these host cells. Its biological structure is comprised of a fragment of nucleic acid that could either be DNA or RNA. The most commonly known examples of viruses are HIV Virus, Coronavirus, Ebola virus, etc.
In this article, you will learn about what is virus in biology, characteristics of virus, its structure, importance, reproduction and examples of virus.
Table of Content
- What is Virus in Biology?
- Characteristics of Virus
- Classification of Virus
- Structure of Virus
- Example of a Bacterial Virus
- Reproduction in Virus
- Importance of Virus
- Diseases caused by Virus