What is a virus?
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| Avian Flu Virus |
A virus is a complex collection of living matter that is able to self-replicate.
What is the structure of a virus?
Virus infecting a cell
They are mostly a shell of protein that encases either DNA or RNA with enzymes for replication. They are a structure of genetic material, either DNA or RNA, called a genome.
How do viruses work?
The genome uses the power of other molecular machines to replicate itself but it cannot do this without infecting another cell. The virus uses its protein shell to bond with the membrane of the cell. This step affects which cells it can enter. Once it enters, it can hijack the protein-making system of the cell and use the cell’s DNA replication process to create viral proteins. These fill up the cell until it bursts, releasing the thousands of viral proteins to infect other hosts.
Viruses are everywhere and can be inhaled, ingested or can generally enter through any entrance into the body.
If a bacteria had eyes, even it would not be able to see a virus.
Viral Tag
In N.E.W. Science class, we played a game called Viral Tag to see how this process would look like to scale. The game was that one team was viruses, one team were blood cells and one group was regular cells. The viruses had to infect everyone in the group, so they had to tag the healthy cells. If no blood cell came to heal the cell, they would become a virus. This displayed how if a cell was infected by a virus, it would produce and release thousands of viruses that would infect other healthy cells. It could easily be seen that the more viruses there were compared to blood cells, the harder it was for the immune system to keep up.
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| Virus infecting a cell |
How do viruses work?
The genome uses the power of other molecular machines to replicate itself but it cannot do this without infecting another cell. The virus uses its protein shell to bond with the membrane of the cell. This step affects which cells it can enter. Once it enters, it can hijack the protein-making system of the cell and use the cell’s DNA replication process to create viral proteins. These fill up the cell until it bursts, releasing the thousands of viral proteins to infect other hosts.
Viruses are everywhere and can be inhaled, ingested or can generally enter through any entrance into the body.
If a bacteria had eyes, even it would not be able to see a virus.
Viral Tag
In N.E.W. Science class, we played a game called Viral Tag to see how this process would look like to scale. The game was that one team was viruses, one team were blood cells and one group was regular cells. The viruses had to infect everyone in the group, so they had to tag the healthy cells. If no blood cell came to heal the cell, they would become a virus. This displayed how if a cell was infected by a virus, it would produce and release thousands of viruses that would infect other healthy cells. It could easily be seen that the more viruses there were compared to blood cells, the harder it was for the immune system to keep up.
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