What needs to happen for a virus to successfully infect a host? What is the infectious cycle? Join the host Federico De Angelis in finding out what are all the obstacles that must be overcome by viruses in order to establish an infection, and what happens once viruses manage to get inside a cell.

Takeaways:

• Viruses can only infect us through our openings, such as the mouth, nose, eyes, genitals and scratches or bruises on our skin.

• Once they get inside the host they have to survive a multiple of physical and chemical defenses at each site of entry.
• Viruses have proteins on their surfaces which act as keys to cells. In order to infect us they need to stumble upon the correct cell with the correct 'door lock' (molecule/receptor) on the cell surface.
• When viruses find the right cell and get inside, they have to release their genetic content either in the cytoplasm (if RNA viruses) or in the nucleus (if DNA viruses), but there are exceptions. This allows their genome to be copied in high numbers, and their proteins to be produced.
• Produced viral proteins then hijack the cell in many different ways to transform it in a 'virus factory'.
• When the viral genome has been copied and the viral proteins produced, these then are transported to the surface of the cell, where they can assemble into a mature viral particle and exit the cell to find other cells and re-start the cycle.

Additional sources:

Review on viral entry inside the cell - https://www.nature.com/articles/nrmicro817

Review on the viral life cycle - https://bio.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Microbiology/Microbiology_(OpenStax)/06%3A_Acellular_Pathogens/6.02%3A_The_Viral_Life_Cycle

BBC bitesized guide to non specific body defenses - https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/znpxwty/revision/2

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