Questions tagged [virology]
Virology deals with the study of viruses, infectious entities that require the machinery of a host cell to replicate.
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Can we develop a nucleos(t)ide analogue to cure rabies?
Nucleos(t)ide analogues have been successfully used to treat HIV, HBV and HCV. Since rabies virus is also a RNA virus that uses RdRp to replicate. If we develop an nucleos(t)ide against its RdRp, will ...
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Data on number of viral replication cycles and their duration doesn't seem to agree with observed duration of infection
I'm trying to model SARS-CoV-2 disease progression in individuals (and have very little background in biology).
At first glance, data from the literature on the duration and number of replication ...
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Can the Monkeypox virus be spread by mosquitoes?
I am wondering if the Monkeypox virus could be spread by mosquitoes since it is part of the Smallpox family.
While doing some online research on this possibility, I came across this abstract taken ...
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Isolation of viruses and Koch's Postulates in connection with terrain theory and claims that viruses don't exist
If, as a physicist, I were to be told that quarks have never been isolated, and so they are not actually real particles, it would take some effort to respond. I'd have to talk about the Standard ...
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Killing enveloped viruses with soap
Unlike non-enveloped viruses, enveloped viruses can be killed with soap, alcohol, etc. Why?
Why does just having an envelope make it susceptible to soap and alcohol?
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Does the SARS-CoV2 spike protein passively diffuse through the nuclear pore complex?
I found this thread which is worth reviewing as context to my question(s) since there is some overlap in potential discussion, although it's concern is with mRNA ingress rather than spike protein.
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Are there any bacteria, virus or mold that can withstand ozone?
Ozonation is often promoted as one of the most effective disinfection procedures. There are numerous reports on how ozone effectively kills bacteria and molds, and disarms viruses within seconds due ...
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Why don’t all HPV strains cause cancers?
There are roughly a dozen high risk HPV strains responsible for cervical cancer. These strains promote hyperplasia of infected cells by encoding E6 and E7, which potently antagonize tumor suppressor ...
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How can a viral infection (like shingles) recur in a healthy individual?
I don't quite understand how a viral infection, like chicken pox (Herpes Zoster), can recur in a healthy individual. If the body has created an immune response, how can the virus just spontaneously ...
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What does the gene name "lexA" stand for?
It is an important gene expressed in E. coli that represses the SOS response and also the expression of lambda lytic phase genes. UV light and damage to DNA is responsible for its breakdown and hence ...
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How likely is rabies virus will enter the body through this kind of imperfect human part when you perform this "experiment"?
First, let's not confuse my question with typical skin peel when your body part slip on a road and get that typical red colored skin due to blood. It's not like blood is flowing, but clearly red area ...
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Do air purifiers work against bacteria and viruses?
We would buy a mobile air purifier in our home.
Against the smoke of the city, etc.
It would have a HEPA + activated carbon filter. They are marketing it as:
"filtration process captures 99.97%...
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How are DNA virus cladograms actually calculated in practice? Is the procedure different for RNA viruses? Are these processes somewhat subjective?
The May 24, 2022 Bloomberg opinion piece Monkeypox Isn’t Looking Like a Covid-Sized Threat; It’s still early, but contact-tracing efforts and analysis of the virus’s genome offer hope that this ...
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Are there any cases where broadening the tissue tropism decreases the virulence of viruses?
Broadening the tissue tropism often increases the virulence. For example, poliovirus normally replicates in the guts and causes minor febrile illnesses. In rare cases (1%) the virus invades neurons ...
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Many viruses use pressure to pump viral DNA into host cells. Does that mean these viruses have a narrow acceptance of the genome size?
DNA viruses like bacteriophages and herpes viruses have rigid capsids. The viral DNA is densely packed inside, and the internal pressure is 1~2 orders of magnitude higher than the atmospheric pressure....
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How does a Coronavirus "test kit" work?
A number of countries are using test kits for detecting new cases of nCoV (2019-Coronavirus) and apparently China is running low.
What exactly is in a nCoV "Test Kit" — How does it work?
(Surely ...
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Why are adenoviral vector vaccines safe in terms of insertion mutagenesis due to genome integration and E4 region's proteins effects?
Disclaimer: I'm neither a genetics professional nor an anti-vax fanatic, I just tried to compare COVID-19 vaccine types currently available on the market and got some questions that I'd like to answer ...
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Why don't viruses reach broad concentration outdoors in a city like allergens?
Why don't airborne viruses reach concentrations that infect most people vulnerable outdoors in a city the way an allergen can cause inflammation to everyone sensitive to it. Both are (often) ...
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If a HIV+ person gets COVID, will it result in more mutant virus? [closed]
High schooler here.
What is the probability of the coronavirus evolving to gain traits of HIV/any other virus from a person suffering from both ailments?
As COVID virus enters cells that are already ...
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How does HIV assemble its capsid correctly?
HIV’s capsid is very unusual. The capsid is made of around 1200 identical CA proteins (p24). These CA proteins first assemble into either pentamers or hexamers, which assemble into a fullerene like ...
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Why have parasites not evolved to be harmless?
I have yet to understand why so many viruses or bacteria haven't evolved to be harmless (specifically, I don't know of any harmless viruses). I think it would be greatly beneficial for a virus to ...
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SARS-COV-2 replication speed
What is the speed of replication of SC2? Any information, including in vitro data would be appreciated.
I would be interested to know the length of SC2 eclipse period, latent period and something like ...
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Is Zayed et al.’s revision of Orthornavirae robust?
Zayed et al. (April 7, 2022) in Science “Cryptic and abundant marine viruses at the evolutionary origins of Earth’s RNA virome” report several major hitherto-unknown Ribovirial phyla:
The two most ...
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Resource to obtain listings of tissues that different viruses infect
I am working on a project that involves analysis of viral DNA sequences. I'd like test hypotheses about issue specificity. Ideally I'd be able to get a table of virus/strain names with a column in it ...
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What is the contribution of viruses to the evolution of mankind?
I'm interested in horizontal gene transfer in bacteria, viruses, and organisms such as Bdelloid Rotifers. I've just read in Carl Zimmer's 'A Planet of Viruses' the following passage:
As a host cell ...
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Zayed et al. (2022) "Cryptic and abundant marine viruses at the evolutionary origins of Earth’s RNA virome"; expressed sequences or transcribed?
Phys.org's Ocean water samples yield treasure trove of RNA virus data summarizes Zayed et al. (April 7, 2022) in Science Cryptic and abundant marine viruses at the evolutionary origins of Earth’s RNA ...
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Would viral diversity result in a change in the effectiveness of CRISPR systems in a population of bacteria, within a closed system?
I have here my hypothesis, does this make scientific sense? Assume this situation is occurring in a closed environment with only bacteria and bacteriophages.
The effectiveness of CRISPR/Cas9, being an ...
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What does vaccine efficacy mean?
In the last few weeks, Pfizer/BionTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca have each released preliminary estimates of the efficacy of their SARS-COV-2 vaccines.
But what do their respective efficacy percentages ...
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With an mRNA-vaccine, would it hypothetically be possible to get that sequence transcribed into their genome for people who suffer from a retrovirus?
I recently read a bit about the mRNA-vaccines for COVID-2019. I fully understand that mRNA cannot enter the genome of a healthy person as they lack the required reverse transcriptase to transcribe RNA ...
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When and how did the Embecovirus acquire hemagglutinin esterase?
The Embecovirus is different from the rest of Betacoronavirus by possessing an additional protein, a hemagglutinin esterase (HE).
There are known similarities between the HE's of different viruses (...
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How do viral envelopes contain molecules coded for by viral genes when they are derived from the host cell's plasma membrane?
I have been studying viruses from " Biology: A Global Approach " by Campbell, Urry, et al. Regarding viral envelopes in animal viruses, the textbook writes, " ..the viral envelope is ...
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Is there an equivalent to vertebrate endogenous retroviruses in invertebrates or microbes?
I know jawed vertebrates have a lot of junk DNA floating around coming from ancient retroviruses. Some of the DNA is important to mammalian evolution. The DNA also provides a useful means to study the ...
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Does Herpes Simplex Virus induce antibodies which last a lifetime?
Herpes simplex virus (HSV-1) is a virus which produces both lytic and latent infection. In the latter case it persists in a quiescent form in the neural ganglia for the lifetime of its host.
My ...
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Infection induced immunity vs vaccine induced immunity
I'm of course concerned about COVID here, but my question is about viruses in general and mRNA vaccines. I'm reading reports including one by the government seeming to suggest that vaccine-induced ...
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Rethinking SARS-CoV-1 and MERS-CoV deadliness after lessons learned from SARS-CoV-2
SARS-CoV-1 case fatality rates were about 9% and MERS-CoV case fatality rates were over 30%.
And now there is a newly discovered MERS-CoV relative, which some scientists have warned may be only one or ...
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Could hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) be used as a 'disinfectant' on hospital patients that are in contact with SARS-CoV-2?
Hydrogen peroxide kills harmful pathogens and various forms of bacteria by destroying their cell walls, through a process called oxidation. However, since SARS-CoV-2 is acellular; not composed of a ...
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Why does the body not develop immunity to rabies during the period of incubation?
Rabies typically has an incubation period of 20 to 60 days and most cases develop only after at least a month after the bite from the infected animal.
Nevertheless, rabies is nearly always fatal and ...
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How does natural selection interacts with sustained mask use?
At leasts in some European countries, the number of respiratory (non-covid) infectious diseases on children this term is higher than last year and similar to pre-pandemic years in spite of social ...
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How do viruses/bacteria survive in extremely cold conditions?
So, recently, i watched a video, it was about a anthrax outbreak in Siberia.
The cause, supposedly were reindeer carcasses, infected by anthrax. Due to the thawing ice they resurfaced, and that lead ...
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How does the first organism infected by a disease get infected?
How does a micro-organism causing some communicable disease infect the first organism it infected?
I was reading about HIV, when I found that HIV has jumped from chimpanzees to human beings. But, how ...
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Could Sars-CoV-2 vaccines make the immune response less effective against new variants?
Some viral diseases (e.g. influenza and dengue fever) are thought to exhibit original antigenic sin.
The immune system remembers viruses that it has been previously exposed to, allowing the body to ...
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Can a less fit strain of a virus impose over a fitter one? [closed]
According to this link, the Dominant Delta Variant may mutate itself into destruction.
The Delta variant in Japan was highly transmissible and keeping other
variants out.
But as the mutations piled ...
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Do mutations in a fundamental structure of a virus [Omicron Variant] make it more transmissible?
I am not a microbiologist, nor a virologist so I had a question - in the new Omicron virus variant, a large number of mutations were reported for the protein spike.
From my naïve understanding, the ...
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Was the Harcourt COVID-19 isolate paper ever published?
One very interesting paper concerning COVID-19 was the paper describing the first isolation of the virus by Harcourt et al. However, this paper as far as I can tell was only published as a preprint in ...
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What animal has the strongest immune system?
I'm wondering what animal has the strongest immune system. It can be defined as the most evolved immune system or the immune system that can eliminate or tolerate most number of (different) viruses/...
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Why there is no ELISA for SARS-CoV-2?
As far as I know, SARS-CoV-2 tests currently used worldwide are real-time RT-PCR. Why there is no ELISA for SARS-CoV-2?
Compared to PCRs, ELISA is:
Way cheaper;
Way faster;
Does not require trained ...
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Can the SARS‑CoV‑2 virus mutate in people who have been fully vaccinated?
I am curious to know if the original SARS‑CoV‑2 virus, or any of its variants, can mutate in people who have been fully vaccinated. I am referring to those people who have received all the recommended ...
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Are viruses self-propelled?
So obviously, viruses are nonliving. But when my teacher was teaching viruses in the video (we're doing "flip" learning this semester), the way he described it, it seemed like the viruses responded to ...
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