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Some viruses can "hide" within a cell, which may mean that they evade the host cell defenses or immune system and may increase the long-term "success" of the virus. This hiding is deemed latency. During this time, the virus does not produce any progeny, it remains inactive until external stimuli—such as light or stress—prompts it to activate.
A virus is a tiny infectious agent that reproduces inside the cells of living hosts. When infected, the host cell is forced to rapidly produce thousands of identical copies of the original virus. Unlike most living things, viruses do not have cells that divide; new
Entry, or penetration, is the second step in viral replication. This step is characterized by the virus passing through the plasma membrane of the host cell. The most common way a virus gains entry to the host cell is by receptor-mediated endocytosis, which comes at no energy cost to the virus, only the host cell. Receptor-mediated endocytosis ...
Viruses need to enter a living body to reproduce. When they do, they hijack that body’s cellular machinery and cause it to make more copies of the virus. ... The vast majority of bacteria don ...
Often we just think of a few viruses—influenza, HIV, and now coronaviruses—but viruses are the most plentiful microbes on the planet. Of those, about 320,000 types of viruses infect mammals ...
Viruses can, and do, turn our world upside down. But they also made us into what we are today.
The variety of host cells that a virus can infect is called its host range: this is narrow for viruses specialized to infect only a few species, or broad for viruses capable of infecting many. [13]: 123–124 Viral infections in animals provoke an immune response that usually eliminates the infecting virus.
Prior to entry, a virus must attach to a host cell. Attachment is achieved when specific proteins on the viral capsid or viral envelope bind to specific proteins called receptor proteins on the cell membrane of the target cell. A virus must now enter the cell, which is covered by a phospholipid bilayer, a cell's natural barrier to the outside ...