The Ins and Outs of Viruses
All viruses need to get into host cells, and eventually, get out of them again. Because of the cell wall, plant viruses face particular problems getting into cells, but we’ll think about them another time. To get into cells, most animal viruses use endocytosis, the process by which cells absorb molecules (such as proteins) from outside. Which brings us to clathrin, shown in this excellent video:
Budding or exocytosis of virus particles (at least, the ones which don’t cheat by causing lysis of infected cells) also involves the cytoskeleton, all of which make clathrin a pretty important molecule for animal viruses.
Related:
- Dissecting the Cell Entry Pathway of Dengue Virus
- Imaging Poliovirus Entry in Live Cells
- How can lytic viruses be evolutionarily competitive?
Tags: Biology, Microbiology, Science, Video, Virology, virus
Brilliant!! I am in awe of the kinds of structural animations that one can get these days. Begs the question of what happens when the virion is too big to fit inside a clathrin cage, mind you….
And as for plant viruses: http://www.mcb.uct.ac.za/tutorial/virusentplant.htm
Thanks for the plant virus link, nice.