3/24/2024

Basic Concepts and

Principles of Virology
Dr. Qamar Abbas

What is a Virus?
• A Virus may be defined as an acellular biological entity whose
genome consists of nucleic acid, and which can replicate only inside
host cells using the metabolic machinery of the host to form a pool of
components that assemble into infectious particles called virions.

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Are Viruses Alive?

Viruses differ from cells in three fundamental

ways:
• A virus usually has only a single type of nucleic acid serving as its
genetic material.
• Viruses contain no metabolic enzymes required for generation of
energy storing compounds such as ATP.
• Viruses do not encode the enzymatic machinery to synthesize their
component macromolecules. They have no protein synthesis
machinery. Thus, they are dependent on host cells for these
processes.

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Fundamentally a virus is:

• A package of genetic information protected by a protein shell for
delivery into a host cell for expression and replication.

Viruses encode Genetic Information that can

reprogram normal host activities
• Viruses do not really do anything. They are basically just packages of
genetic material that infect all organisms and can move from from
one susceptible host to another susceptible host.
• Viruses survive only by being able to reprogram their host activities to
mediate virus replication. They are like “software in search of
hardware”!!! Viruses are inert until entry into susceptible host cells.

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• Simple viruses are composed of nucleoprotein.

• The protein provides a protective coat.
• The Viral Genome consists of either DNA or RNA.
• Complex viruses may have other components, including
Carbohydrates, Lipids & Phosphoproteins.
• Complex viruses may also have viral encoded enzymes.

Where do Viruses Come From

Many scientists think viruses have
multipleorigins. Some argue that
viruses originated from previously
independent forms. Others think that
viruses continue to evolve from
subcellular macromolecules that then
gain the ability to move from cell to
cell. Some postulate that viruses have
evolved independently of cells in the
“RNA world.”

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What do Viruses Look Like?

• Virus particles have one of two basic
core shapes. They are either
rodshaped or are spherical.
Rodshaped particles are helical and
spheres usually are Isocahedral
structures. Phages may have both
types of structures.
• Some Viruses are more complex and
have membrane envelopes that cloak
the viral capsids. The viral membranes
are usually derived from host cell
membranes

The Sizes of Viruses Compared to Bacteria

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Virus Diseases clearly impacted Ancient

Civilizations
• The mummified head of Ramses V who died in 1157 BC
(3160 years ago) showed pustular eruptions. He probably
was a smallpox victim!!
• Many plagues thought to be smallpox were recorded from
2000 to 3000 years ago. Smallpox was probably
widespread in India by the 5th century B.C.

First written record of virus

• The first written record of a virus
infection consists of a stone tablet
from Memphis, the capital of
ancient Egypt, drawn in
approximately 3700 BC. This
heiroglyph depicts a priest called
Ruma who is showing symptoms of
polio.

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First Known Plant Virus Description

• Earliest known record of a probable plant virus disease was a poem
written in 752 A.D. by the Japanese Empress Koken.

In this village It looks as if

frosting continuously
For, the plant I saw In the field
of summer The color of the
leaves were yellow

The Birth of Virology

• Adolph Mayer-1883. Inoculated plants with agent that he named Tobacco
mosaic virus. Showed that the agent was soluble and could not be grown in
culture. Thought that the pathogen might be a small bacterium.
• Demitri Ivanowsky-1893. Filtered the agent through bacterial free filters,
but thought the filter might be cracked. Suggested that the pathogen was a
very small bacterium or toxin.
• Martinus Beijerinck- 1897 Found that the agent could reproduce only in
the host and was not inactivated by alcohol. Called the agent a “contagium
vivum fluidum” or a “contageous living liquid”. He found that the agent
could diffuse through filters and agar. He said that the agent was not a
bacterium, fungus or other culturable pathogen. He is known as the
“Father of Virology”.

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Proof that Animal Diseases can be Caused by

Viruses
• F.A.J. Loeffler and P. Frosch working in 1898 with Robert Kosch in
Germany discovered the first vertebrate virus, foot and-mouth
disease virus, with filters that held back bacteria.
• Walter Reed (1900) showed that yellow fever in humans was caused
by a filterable virus that was transmitted by mosquitoes.
• Ellerman and Bang (1908) demonstrated that leukemia in chickens
was caused by a virus.
• Peyton Rous (1911) showed that muscle tumors in chickens were
caused by a virus that later was shown to be a retrovirus. Won Nobel
Prize in 1962 at age 84.

Discovery of Bacterial Viruses

• Frederick Twort (1915) First to isolate viruses that infect bacteria
(bacteriophages)
• Felix d’Herelle (1917) Firmly established the existence of
bacteriophages.
• Demonstrated that phages only reproduce in living bacteria.
• d’Herelle thought that bacteriophages might be used for therapy.

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Properties of a Viruses are

• Obligate
• Contagious
• Microscopic
• Heterogeneous
• Intracellular Parasite
• No ATP generating system
• No ribosomes/No protein

Typical Virus
- 1. Nucleic Acid
o DNA or RNA (But never both)

- 2. Capsid (Coat Protein)

- Some Viruses:
o A. Envelope
o B. Enzymes

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Host range
• Host range is determined by Viruses ability to interact with its host cell, Binding Sites should match Receptor
Sites

 Binding Sites - on viral capsid or envelope

 Receptor Sites - on host cell membrane

- Most viruses have a narrow host range:

o Polio virus - nerve cells

o Adenovirus - cells in upper Respiratory Tract

• Some viruses only infect:
• plants
• invertebrates
• protists
• fungi
• bacteria (Bacteriophages)

Classification of Viruses
• Viruses are divided into related groups, or families, and, sometimes
into subfamilies based on:

1. Type and structure of the viral nucleic acid

2. Strategy used in its replication
3. Symmetry of the virus capsid (helical versus icosahedral)
4. Presence or absence of a lipid envelope

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ICTV and
Baltimore system

ICTV: International Committee for the

taxonomy of viruses
• Naming and classification of viruses early in the 1970s
• Viral classification starts at the level of order and follows
as thus, with the taxon suffixes given in italics:
• Order (-virales)
• Family (-viridae)
• Subfamily (-virinae)
• Genus (-virus)
• Species

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Baltimore System
• Seven groups based on nucleic acid (DNA or RNA)
• Named after David Baltimore, a Nobel Prize-winning biologist

• I: dsDNA viruses (e.g. Adenoviruses, Herpesviruses, Poxviruses)

• II: ssDNA viruses (+)sense DNA (e.g. Parvoviruses)
• III: dsRNA viruses (e.g. Reoviruses)
• IV: (+)ssRNA viruses (+)sense RNA (e.g. Picornaviruses, Togaviruses)
• V: (−)ssRNA viruses (−)sense RNA (e.g. Orthomyxoviruses, Rhabdoviruses)
• VI: ssRNA-RT viruses (+)sense RNA with DNA intermediate in life-cycle
(e.g. Retroviruses)
• VII: dsDNA-RT viruses (e.g. Hepadnaviruses)

Virion Structure
Lipid Envelope Nucleic Acid

Protein
Capsid

Virion
Associated
Spike
Polymerase
Projections

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Steps in the replication cycles of viruses

1. Adsorption
• Attachment sites on the viral surface
• Host cell receptor molecules
2. Penetration
• Receptor-mediated endocytosis ● Membrane fusion
3. Un-coating
4. Genome replication
• DNA Virus ● RNA Virus (ssRNA +polarity; ssRNA –polarity; dsRNA; ssRNA +polarity
with DNA intermediate)
5. Assembly and release
• Naked
• Enveloped

Effect of viruses on cells

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1. Cell lyses:

• The virus leave the host cell by breaking the cytoplasmic membrane
and is released out as viroins to attack other cells (enveloped viruses
come out of the cells like budding without rupturing the cell.)

• As the virus comes out of the cell the host cell will rupture i.e lyses
(killed) and die.

2. Cell transformation:
• A small group of viruses are able to change, or transform their host
cells from normal cells into abnormal ones with properties of
cancerous cells, here the cell is not dead.

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3. Immune complex diseases:

• Immune system of host cell produces antibodies to fight the virus

.Antibodies will react with virus (antigen), and Antigen-Antibody
complex is produced that deposit in different places of body e.g.
Hepatitis B deposit in glomeruli of kidney

4- Asymptomatic Disease:
• Some viruses after infecting cells do not replicate, or they become
active for a time and then become inactive (latent). In response to
certain stimuli, latent viruses can be reactivated and become active
replicating particles, for example herpesviruses.

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