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Introduction to virology
Viruses can infect all organisms (humans , plants,
animals , even viruses themselves could be infected by
other viruses),that's why they are described as significant
.pathogens
Viruses have shaped the history of mankind as follows:-ஜ
Outbreak of poliomyelitis caused millions of paralyzed(1
individuals , Paralytic illness that spread in the last
. century in the developed countries
Building of panama canal by the French failed due to(2
the outbreak of yellow fever that disseminated their
. forces and killed millions in the 19th century
Influenza still spreading in annual epidemics in every(3
country as well as pandemic across the countries every
20-30 years . One such epidemic known as Spanish Flu
which spreaded at the end of the first world war (1918-
1919) with the killing of at least 20 million people ,
pessimistic writers says it killed 100 million!!!!! So it
changed the history by changing the course of the war
and killing millions of Germans , according to the chief
staff of the German forces accused influenza of being the
cause of defeat of German troops. It killed 140thousand
American soldiers more than those killed by the war
.itself

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Nowadays there is a potential risk of the spreading

Epidemic : in one country
.epidemic flu
Pandemic : in more than one country
-:Viruses' structure
A nucleic acid (RNA , DNA , But not both) core surrounded by a
protein coat might have a 3rd phospholipids bilayer , with this
simple structure they enter the cell and redirect its machinery to
produce their own components and they are produced in large
amounts and their nucleic acids amplified then they are
assembled together to produce new viruses which leave the cell
. to infect other cells , and do the same to them and so on
.Here you should note that viruses do not copy themselves
As if viruses exist just to transfer nucleic acids from one cell to
.another
Because when they are outside the cell, they do not replicate
and they are completely inert. In bacteria they have an
important impact, the term transduction, transfer of genetic
material from one bacterial cell to another by a virus, and this
genetic material may code for an important function, like toxic
production in diphtheria, also streptococci which become
virulent in lysogenic cycle and the same for staphylococci, which
become resistant to methicillin and other penicillins as a
.consequence of the acquisition of the resistant gene by a virus
Viruses are incapable of multiplying outside the cells and need
to infect cells to multiply, so we can't regard them as
microorganisms, they are just examples assemblage of nucleic
acid and proteins, and so they can be viewed as extra-cellular
.organelles
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Despite the simple structure of the viruses they have more

diversity than all the kingdoms all put together, they have
.adapted to infect all of these living organisms
Viruses are submicroscopic obligate intracellular parasites that
differ from all living organisms in many aspects:- look below to
know these aspects
They are very small in size(10-300 nm). The largest is
pox virus which has a diameter of 300 nm, can barely bee
seen by light microscope(resolution power is about 200
nm) but most viruses can't be seen by the light
.microscope due to the small size
Viral particles are produced from the assembly of
preformed components. Within the infected cells proteins
are synthesized by coding from viral genes as the viruses
directs the machinery of the infected cells to synthesize
its proteins, it also utilizes some enzymes replicate its
genome. Certain viruses have the enzymes necessary for
the replication of its genome. Then genome and proteins
.assemble together to form a complete virus
Viruses lack the genetic information for the generation of
metabolic energy for protein synthesis, which are
ribosome; this contributes for their incapability of not
.multiplying outside living cells
Other agents that cause diseases in different systems
that confound the concept about viruses(nucleic acid core
surrounded by protein coat), they are very close to
-:viruses but are not typical viruses

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Viroids:-circular RNA molecules(200-400 nt.)with a rod

like structure. They have no capsid or envelope and are
associated with certain plant diseases. Note they are not
.human pathogens
♣Virusoids:-Satellite, viroid like molecules, circular RNA
molecules with larger size(1000nt.) they are packaged in
capsid obtained from other viruses, they do not code their
own protein coat they borrow it from other viruses, that’s
why they are considered as passenger viruses. So their
existence depend on the existence of other viruses as
.they can't continue replication without the coat
E.G-Hepatitis D virus: hepatitis D is a disease caused by
small circular RNA viruses(Hepatitis delta virus or
Hepatitis D virus, HDV). HDV is considered to be a sub
viral satellite because it can propagate only in the
.(presence of another virus, The Hepatitis B virus (HBV
Prions:-protein of a single type that cause infection of
cells, they are highly resistant to proteases, but they are
normally found in the cytoskeleton of the cells, but for
some reasons these proteins become up normal whether
from acquisition of external substance or from mutation
that causes the alteration of the behavior of prions to be
deposited in the cytoplasm of the cell instead of being
within the cytoskeleton of the cell. Their deposition is
associated with degenerative changes, they cause a wide
variety of diseases in plants, animals and humans, e.g-
scrapie in sheep and bovine spongiform encephalopathy
,(in cattle(mad cow disease

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Creutzfeldt - Jakob disease in humans (CJD), which is a

fatal neuron degenerative disorder that might be acquired
from consumption of contaminated beef which contains
.nervous tissue
There is a new discovery of a new CJD with a shorter incubation
period (1year)spreading now in Europe, the usual incubation
.(period of CJD is in the range between(20-30 years

‫ن أهل‬ ُ ‫ فماذا أتوقعُ أنا وأنت ونح‬، ‫ وشتموا الواحد الحد ل إله إل هو‬، ‫الرّقعا ُء السّخفاءُ سبّوا الخالق الرّازق جلّ في عله‬
ِ‫ ومن التحطيم المدروس‬، ‫ إنك سوف تواجهُ في حياتِك حرْباً! ضرُوسُا ل هوادة فيها من النّقدِ الثمِ الم ّر‬، ‫الحيف والخطأ‬
‫ ولن يسكت هؤلءِ عنك حتى تتخذ نفقاً في‬، ‫ ومن الهانةِ المتعمّدة مادام أنك تُعطي وتبني وتؤثرُ وتسطعُ وتلم ُع‬، ِ‫المقصود‬
ّ‫ ويقض‬، ‫ ويُدمي مقلتك‬، ‫ أما وأنت بين أظه ِر ِهمْ فانتظ ْر منهمْ ما يسوؤك ويُبكي عينك‬، ‫ض أو سلماً في السماءِ فتفرّ منهم‬ِ ‫الر‬
.‫مضجعك‬
-:The origin of virology
The discipline of virology is a new one in biology as it was
recently separated from it and recognized as an infectious agent
in the 20th century to be different from other infectious agents.
.But diseases caused by viruses are very old , from antiquity
The earliest written document of a virus disease is a hieroglyph
back to 1400BC, from Memphis depicts a temple priest showing
.clinical signs of paralytic poliomyelitis

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1196BC: the pharaoh Ramses 5 is believed to have succumbed

to smallpox. It has similar pustule lesions to the ones shown by
.recent infections of smallpox

Ancient people of china have tried to prevent the viral infection

in 600BC, used crusts of smallpox in the form of snuffing to
induce immunity so they become resistant to smallpox, but it
was associated with fatal outcomes, because they got actually
.infected except for some of them who became immunized to it

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The crust of the lesions were then modified to a form of material

introduced to the skin by the Turkish from whom the British
ambassador's wife took this practice to England where Edward
jenner took the concept and vaccinated a child with cowpox
lesions to immune him to smallpox in 1796 which marked the
.new area of vaccination
ஜ Postulates of Koch:- to incriminate an agent causing the
disease, it must be isolated from cases in pure culture and when
its re-injected it should cause the disease and be recovered from
those having the disease. But viruses did not meet these criteria
.because it was not possible to culture them at that time
In their trials to isolate microorganisms they introduced the
. concept of filterable agents
They took culture filtrate and specimen and filtrate them using
membranes with certain pore sizes, the pore sizes where in the
range of
0.22microns - 0.45microns) they notices that there are diseases)
.caused by agent that pass through these filters
The name virus at that time was used not to indicate the
structure we know today, in latin it means a slimy substance or a
.poison. So it was indiscriminately used to indicate any infection
the first demonstration of virus being a cause of human -: 1909
disease by Landsteiner who is famous for discovering the (A,B,O
(blood system
And popper who showed that poliomyelitis was caused by a
.filterable agent

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the 1st electron micrograph of a virus <tobacco mosaic -:1939

virus>(TMV) was taken , which was followed by the
demonstration of many filterable agents from animals and
.humans
With other techniques especially X-ray crystallography,
immunology, and antibodies, many viruses were discovered and
this was promoted with the development of cell culture for the
isolation of viruses. The 1st virus to be isolated was poliomyelitis,
which was the major problem for the developed countries,
caused annual epidemics of paralytic disease, which was
terminated in the 1950s with the production of a vaccine in 1955
as a consequence of the cultivation of the virus in a cell culture
in non-neural origin. In vitro it was grown in bacterial cells by
Fraenkel-Conrat & Williams who were famous for this
.breakthrough in virology
in the 1950s and 1960s there was an explosion in
.the discovery of new viruses
Prompted by rapidly growing mass of data, several
individuals and committees independently advanced
.classification schemes
The result was confusion over competing and
conflicting schemes, and it became clear that
this topic is a matter of controversy, as there were
more than one base could be used in classification,
whether to type of nucleic acid or the shape or the
.……disease
International committees were formed to classify
.viruses
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-:Virus structure
Viruses are made of two major components :nucleic acid
core(DNA or RNA but not both) protein coat , some viruses have
a third layer which is a phospholipids' bilayer (Envelope), so
viruses either enveloped or naked. This 3rd layer is acquired from
.the infected cells
Viruses have different shapes and sizes, they form regular
geometric shapes despite the fact that they are composed of
irregular components. These structural features are not
haphazard ;they are usually determined by functional
requirements :for assembly, attachment and other functions of
.viruses
-:Structure components
Capsid:-The capsid is the protein shell that encloses the nucleic
acid; with its enclosed nucleic acid, it is called nucleocapsid. This
shell is composed of protein organized in subunits known as
.capsomers

Envelope:-The lipid bilayer associated and associated

.glycoproteins that surround some viruses

Virion:-A complete virus particle with its DNA or RNA core and
protein coat as it exists outside the cell. Also called a viral
.particle

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Virion is an infectious virus as some products of replications of

viruses are faulty and do not cause infection. 90-95% of the
product of the replication can't continue because of defect in
their structure, so they can't infect other cells. So the majority of
.viruses are not infectious

-:Capsid symmetry and virus architecture

Protein coat is coded only from the viral genome, and each
amino acid is coded by triplet codone, so viral nucleic acid can
.code for certain numbers of amino acids
The molecular weight of one codone is 1000 dalton, and for
amino acid is 150 dalton, and we don't have all the codones
.which coding for amino acids as have introns and exons
So the whole viral nucleotides (if they all have a coding
sequence) will code for a maximum polypeptide of 15% of the
.size of the nucleic acid
To overcome this dilemma, viruses produce multiple subunits, so
the coat is made of many identical units, which is the only
.mechanism that can be utilized by viruses to form its structure
It was demonstrated that when mixtures of purified virus nucleic
acid and coat proteins were incubated together in vitro, they are
.assembled together and virus particles are formed
They assembled spontaneously, no energy is needed for the
assembly, free energy minimum state, yet they result in stable
structures which is important, otherwise they will be
.deactivated

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The forces which drive assembly include hydrophobic and

electrostatic interactions, only rare covalent bonds involved in
.holding together the multiple subunits
In biological terms, this means that protein-protein, protein-
.nucleic acid and protein – lipid interactions are used
‫جهد النفوسِ وألقوا دونهُ ا ُل ُزرَا‬ ‫دببتَ للمج ِد والساعون قد‬
‫بلغُوا‬
‫وعانق المجد َمنْ أوفى ومنْ صبرا‬
-:Helical structure
ْ‫وكابدوا المجد حتى ملّ أكثرُهم‬

‫صبِرا‬
ّ ‫ن تبلغ المجد حتى تلْعق ال‬
ْ‫ل‬ ُ‫ل تحسبِ المجد تمراً أنتَ آكلُه‬
Since viruses are made of irregular units, the simplest way to
arrange them in a regular structre is to arrange them in circles
regarding of their similarities, and these circles are arranged in a
.helix
Close examination of helical viruses revealed that the structure
of the capsid actually consists of helix rather than a pile of
.stacked disks
Some helices are rigid, but some are considerably flexible and
.longer helical viruses are often curved or bent
All animal helical viruses are enveloped, naked animal helical
.viruses do not exist, and they all have single stranded RNA
. Note we have also plant naked helical viruses

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Capsomers are closely associated with the nucleic acid and

reflect its configuration, either a rod-shaped helix or a poly-
shaped sphere. So the morphology of the viruses is determined
.by the symmetry of the genome

The End
Special thanks to my dearest friend Sameer
shwaiki from the 3rd year walla 3la rasi ya
za3eem and to my relative ANAS hijjawi also
from 3rd year for helping me in writing this
.sheet
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I want to dedicate this sheet to all of you

AND remember this Sheet is not a gift it is a

right for you 

Coming together is a beginning; keeping
together is progress; working together is
success
Done by:-Ahmed abu-khadigh

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