Portal:Viruses
The Viruses Portal
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Viruses are small infectious agents that can replicate only inside the living cells of an organism. Viruses infect all forms of life, including animals, plants, fungi, bacteria and archaea. They are found in almost every ecosystem on Earth and are the most abundant type of biological entity, with millions of different types, although only about 6,000 viruses have been described in detail. Some viruses cause disease in humans, and others are responsible for economically important diseases of livestock and crops.
Virus particles (known as virions) consist of genetic material, which can be either DNA or RNA, wrapped in a protein coat called the capsid; some viruses also have an outer lipid envelope. The capsid can take simple helical or icosahedral forms, or more complex structures. The average virus is about 1/100 the size of the average bacterium, and most are too small to be seen directly with an optical microscope.
The origins of viruses are unclear: some may have evolved from plasmids, others from bacteria. Viruses are sometimes considered to be a life form, because they carry genetic material, reproduce and evolve through natural selection. However they lack key characteristics (such as cell structure) that are generally considered necessary to count as life. Because they possess some but not all such qualities, viruses have been described as "organisms at the edge of life".
Selected disease
Chickenpox is caused by initial infection with varicella zoster virus, a DNA virus of the Alphaherpesvirinae subfamily. The virus naturally infects only humans, but some other primates have been infected artificially. Symptoms appear 10–21 days after exposure: an itchy vesicular skin rash, and small ulcers in the oral cavity and tonsil areas. The rash usually resolves by 7 days, but the virus remains latent in nerve cell bodies, and can emerge years or decades later to cause shingles. Chickenpox is transmitted by the respiratory route, as well as direct contact with lesions.
A classic disease of childhood, the highest prevalence occurs at 4–10 years. Chickenpox is rarely fatal in people with a normal immune system, with around 6,400 deaths worldwide in 2015, about 1 in 60,000 infections. Adults often have more severe symptoms than children, and are at higher risk of complications such as pneumonia, bronchitis, hepatitis and encephalitis. Pregnant women and people with a suppressed immune system have the highest complication risk. Chickenpox during the first 28 weeks of gestation can lead to foetal malformations. Infection in adults is usually treated with antiviral drugs, such as aciclovir or valaciclovir, which reduces symptom severity and the risk of complications. A vaccine is available.
Selected image
Ebola virus is a filamentous RNA virus first recognised in 1976. Four of the five known members of the Ebolavirus genus cause a severe haemorrhagic fever in humans.
Credit: Cynthia Goldsmith
In the news
26 February: In the ongoing pandemic of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), more than 110 million confirmed cases, including 2.5 million deaths, have been documented globally since the outbreak began in December 2019. WHO
18 February: Seven asymptomatic cases of avian influenza A subtype H5N8, the first documented H5N8 cases in humans, are reported in Astrakhan Oblast, Russia, after more than 100,0000 hens died on a poultry farm in December. WHO
14 February: Seven cases of Ebola virus disease are reported in Gouécké, south-east Guinea. WHO
7 February: A case of Ebola virus disease is detected in North Kivu Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. WHO
4 February: An outbreak of Rift Valley fever is ongoing in Kenya, with 32 human cases, including 11 deaths, since the outbreak started in November. WHO
21 November: The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) gives emergency-use authorisation to casirivimab/imdevimab, a combination monoclonal antibody (mAb) therapy for non-hospitalised people twelve years and over with mild-to-moderate COVID-19, after granting emergency-use authorisation to the single mAb bamlanivimab earlier in the month. FDA 1, 2
18 November: The outbreak of Ebola virus disease in Équateur Province, Democratic Republic of the Congo, which started in June, has been declared over; a total of 130 cases were recorded, with 55 deaths. UN
Selected article
Plant viruses face different challenges from animal viruses. As plants do not move, transmission between hosts often involves vectors, most commonly insects, but also nematodes and protozoa. Plant viruses can also spread via seeds, and by direct transfer of sap. Plant cells are surrounded by cell walls which are difficult to penetrate. Movement between cells occurs mainly by transport through plasmodesmata, and most plant viruses encode movement proteins to make this possible. Although plants lack an adaptive immune system, they have complex defences against viral infection. Viruses of cultivated plants often cause disease, and are thought to cause up to US$60 billion losses to global crop yields each year; infections of wild plants are often asymptomatic.
Most plant viruses are rod-shaped, with protein discs forming a tube surrounding the viral genome; isometric particles are another common structure. They rarely have an envelope. The great majority have an RNA genome, which is usually small and single stranded. Plant viruses are grouped into 73 genera and 49 families. Tobacco mosaic virus (pictured) is among the best characterised of the 977 species officially recognised in 1999.
Selected outbreak
The last recorded smallpox death occurred during the 1978 smallpox outbreak in Birmingham, UK. The outbreak resulted from accidental exposure to the Abid strain of Variola major, from a laboratory, headed by Henry Bedson, at the University of Birmingham Medical School – also associated with an outbreak in 1966. Bedson was investigating strains of smallpox known as whitepox, considered a potential threat to the smallpox eradication campaign, then in its final stages.
A medical photographer who worked on the floor above the laboratory showed smallpox symptoms in August and died the following month; one of her contacts was also infected but survived. The government inquiry into the outbreak concluded that she had been infected in late July, possibly via ducting, although the precise route of transmission was subsequently challenged. The inquiry criticised the university's safety procedures. Bedson committed suicide while under quarantine. Radical changes in UK research practices for handling dangerous pathogens followed, and all known stocks of smallpox virus were concentrated in two laboratories.
Selected quotation
| “ | An inefficient virus kills its host. A clever virus stays with it. | ” |
Recommended articles
Viruses & Subviral agents: bat virome • elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus • HIV • introduction to viruses
• Playa de Oro virus • poliovirus • prion • rotavirus • virus
Diseases: colony collapse disorder • common cold • croup • dengue fever • gastroenteritis • Guillain–Barré syndrome • hepatitis B • hepatitis C • hepatitis E • herpes simplex • HIV/AIDS • influenza • meningitis • myxomatosis • polio • pneumonia • shingles • smallpox
Epidemiology & Interventions: 2007 Bernard Matthews H5N1 outbreak • Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations • Disease X • 2009 flu pandemic • HIV/AIDS in Malawi • polio vaccine • Spanish flu • West African Ebola virus epidemic
Virus–Host interactions: antibody • host • immune system • parasitism • RNA interference
Methodology: metagenomics
Social & Media: And the Band Played On • Contagion • "Flu Season" • Frank's Cock • Race Against Time: Searching for Hope in AIDS-Ravaged Africa • social history of viruses • "Steve Burdick" • "The Time Is Now" • "What Lies Below"
People: Brownie Mary • Macfarlane Burnet • Bobbi Campbell • Aniru Conteh • people with hepatitis C • HIV-positive people • Bette Korber • Henrietta Lacks • Linda Laubenstein • Barbara McClintock • poliomyelitis survivors • Joseph Sonnabend • Eli Todd • Ryan White
Selected virus
Alphaviruses are a genus of RNA viruses in the Togaviridae family. The spherical enveloped virion is 70 nm in diameter, with a nucleocapsid of 40 nm. It has a single-stranded, positive-sense RNA genome of 11–12 kb. The genus contains more than thirty species, which infect humans, horses, rodents and other mammals, as well as fish, birds, other vertebrates and invertebrates. Alphaviruses are generally transmitted by insect vectors, predominantly mosquitoes, and are an example of arboviruses (arthropod-borne viruses).
The first alphavirus to be discovered was western equine encephalitis virus, by Karl Friedrich Meyer in 1930, in horses with fatal encephalitis in San Joaquin Valley, California, USA. Some members of the genus cause significant disease in humans, including the chikungunya, o'nyong'nyong, Ross River, Sindbis, Barmah Forest and Semliki Forest (pictured) viruses and the eastern, western and Venezuelan equine encephalitis viruses. Arthritis, encephalitis, rashes and fever are the most frequently observed symptoms. Large mammals such as humans usually form dead-end hosts for the viruses, although Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus is mainly amplified in the horse. No human vaccine or antiviral drug has been licensed. Prevention is predominantly by control of the insect vector.
Did you know?
- ...that composer Mozart (pictured) learned card tricks and fencing while recovering from smallpox?
- ...that the anabolic steroid oxandrolone was granted orphan drug status in treatment of alcoholic hepatitis, Turner syndrome and HIV wasting syndrome?
- ...that Agile Mangabeys are known to contract the T-cell leukemia virus, similar to the leukemia virus that infects humans?
- ...that in a 1997 Alaskan expedition, pathologist Johan Hultin retrieved samples of the 1918 influenza virus from the lungs of flu victims preserved by permafrost?
- ...that LdMNPV's EGT gene is responsible for the infected larvae's 'zombie-like' behavior?
Selected biography
Ali Maow Maalin (1954 – 22 July 2013) was a hospital cook and health worker from Merca, Somalia, who is the last person in the world known to be infected with naturally occurring smallpox. Although he worked in the local smallpox eradication programme, he had not been successfully vaccinated. In October 1977, he was infected with the Variola minor strain of the virus while driving two children with smallpox symptoms to quarantine. He did not experience complications and made a full recovery. An aggressive containment campaign was successful in preventing an outbreak, and smallpox was declared to have been eradicated globally by the World Health Organization (WHO) two years later.
In later life, Maalin volunteered for the successful poliomyelitis eradication campaign in Somalia. He worked for WHO as a local coordinator with responsibility for social mobilisation, and spent several years travelling across Somalia, vaccinating children and educating communities. He encouraged people to be vaccinated by sharing his experiences with smallpox. He died of malaria while carrying out polio vaccinations after the reintroduction of poliovirus to the country in 2013.
In this month
1 April 1911: Peyton Rous showed that a cell-free isolate could transmit sarcoma in chickens, an early demonstration of cancer caused by a virus
7 April 1931: First electron micrograph taken by Ernst Ruska and Max Knoll
8 April 1976: Bacteriophage MS2 (pictured) sequenced by Walter Fiers and coworkers, first viral genome to be completely sequenced
8 April 1990: Death from AIDS of Ryan White, haemophiliac teenager for whom the Ryan White Care Act is named
8 April 1992: Tennis player Arthur Ashe announced that he had been infected with HIV from blood transfusions
9 April 1982: Stanley Prusiner proposed proteinaceous prions as the cause of scrapie
12 April 1955: Success of trial of Jonas Salk's polio vaccine announced
12 April 2013: New order of double-stranded DNA bacteriophages, Ligamenvirales, announced
15 April 1957: André Lwoff proposes a concise definition of a virus
21 April 1989: Discovery of hepatitis C virus by Qui-Lim Choo and colleagues
28 April 1932: First yellow fever vaccine announced at an American Societies for Experimental Biology meeting by Wilbur Sawyer
29 April 2015: PAHO and WHO declared the Americas region free from rubella transmission
30 April 1937: Discovery of Theiler's murine encephalomyelitis virus, later a model for multiple sclerosis research
Selected intervention
| “ | the most damaging medical hoax of the last 100 years —Dennis Flaherty, 2011 |
” |
The MMR vaccine and autism fraud refers to the false claim that the combined vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) might be associated with colitis and autism spectrum disorders. Multiple large epidemiological studies have since found no link between the vaccine and autism. The notion originated in a fraudulent research paper by Andrew Wakefield and co-authors, published in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet in 1998. Sunday Times journalist Brian Deer's investigations revealed that Wakefield had manipulated evidence and had multiple undeclared conflicts of interest. The paper was retracted in 2010, when the Lancet's editor-in-chief Richard Horton characterised it as "utterly false". Wakefield was found guilty of serious professional misconduct by the General Medical Council, and struck off the UK's Medical Register. The claims in Wakefield's article were widely reported in the press, resulting in a sharp drop in vaccination uptake in the UK and Ireland. A greatly increased incidence of measles and mumps followed, leading to deaths and serious permanent injuries.
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