Creation of the Virus
A virus is an infective agent that usually consists of a nucleic acid molecule in a protein coat. It is so small that it cannot be seen by light microscopy. The virus can only multiply within the living cells of a host cell. A normal virus infects the body and goes throughout the body finding a suitable cell to become its host. Once a virus finds the cell, it injects a new genetic code that causes the cell to turn into a virus factory. It will eventually destroys the cell, but the process makes large amounts of viruses that can then go out and find a new cell to infect, and start the cycle over again. However with an engineered virus, such as the Oncolytic virus, it only targets the infected cells and leaves the healthy cells untouched.
Virotherapy takes viruses and reprograms them into targeting only the malicious and infected cells. More specifically it reprograms the somatic cells to generate Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (iPSCs), adult cells that have been genetically reprogrammed to an embryonic stem cell–like state by being forced to express genes and factors important for maintaining the defining properties of embryonic stem cells. In 2006, it was discovered that a mouse and human fibroblast could be reprogrammed to generate Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells with qualities similar to embryonic stem cells. This has created a new source of pluripotent cells.
Oct4, Sox2, Klf4, and c-Myc, also known as the Yamanaka Factors, are the main factors of reprogramming cells. Normal gene transcription allows the inserted Oct4, Sox2, Klf4, and c-Myc transgenes to be expressed along with the host's gene. However not all viruses are applicable. Some viruses rely on the host to cell to reproduce and could ...
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...ancerous cells, while damaging more of the healthy cells. Virotherapy is still fairly new compared to other treatments, such as an excision of the tumor. However, virotherapy has engineered viruses to attack only the cancerous cells without damaging the healthy cells. Virotherapy is done by direct injecting the virus into the cancer. It would react quickly and efficiently while target all the other cancerous cells and leaving your healthy cells undamaged. This allows patients to recover faster because there is less to repair. This is a patient-lenient therapy, a treatment when the patient does not have to stay in the hospital for over a twenty-four hour time span, which allows the patient to continue daily exercises and tasks. However, effects vary between each patient because each person’s own immune system plays a major factor in the effects of the virus.
Baseball players and fans call it Tommy John surgery, after the pitcher who was the first to have the surgery 29 years ago. By any designation, it is one of the major advancements in sports medicine in the last quarter century. Technically it is a ulnar collateral ligament replacements procedure.
The word virus comes from the Latin word, poison. A virus infects a cell and into it, inserts its DNA. The virus then multiplies inside the cell and when enough of the virus has been produced, the newly formed viruses will break out into the body of the host, destroying the cell in the process. Variola major and Variol...
Viral infections are caused by different kinds of viruses. They have a simple structure and are tinier than bacteria by a landslide. Viruses can only survive in a host, and are unable to reproduce by themselves, instead they use the host’s DNA to multiply and repair. Most viruses are harmful to the human body and cause disease. They direct themselves to infect the cells in the liver, respiratory system, and blood. Which cause diseases like the flu, chickenpox, Aids, herpes, etcetera. Viruses are also involved in many forms of cancer. They
Flanagan, J.M. “Host Epigenetic Modifications by Oncogenic Viruses.” Nature Publishing Group, 19 Dec. 2006. Web. 31 Mar. 2014. .
Pluripotent stem cells were first induced using other model organisms such as Xenopus and Mus, but the methods were still considered controversial because they still included the use of an embryonic stem cell (such as cell fusion, nuclear injection) . In 2006, a new method of inducing pluripotency that did not utilize an embryonic stem cell was generated by manipulating the four reprogramming factors Oct3/4, Sox2, Klf4, and c-Myc. They were integrated into the genome of mice fibroblast cells using retroviral vectors, which yielded cells capable of in vitro and in vivo differentiation into various cells of all three g...
Viruses are the simplest and tiniest of microbes, and are made up of proteins, nucleic acid, and lipids. The nucleic acids contain the genetic code that helps them grow and reproduce, but only once they find their way into a living organism. Viruses themselves are not considered living organisms because they don’t have cells, they don’t metabolize nutrients, produce and excrete wastes, and they can’t move around on their own. The remains of the nucleic acid then forms a covering, called the capsid. Once the capsid gets removed, viruses use the building materials of th...
The virus is primarily spherical shaped and roughly 200nm in size, surrounded by a host-cell derived membrane. Its genome is minus-sense single-stranded RNA 16-18 kb in length. It contains matrix protein inside the envelope, hemagglutinin and neuraminidase, fusion protein, nucleocapsid protein, and L and P proteins to form the RNA polymerase. The host-cell receptors on the outside are hemagglutinin and neuraminidase. The virus is allowed to enter the cell when the hemagglutinin/ neuraminidase glycoproteins fuse with the sialic acid on the surface of the host cell, and the capsid enters the cytoplasm. The infected cells express the fusion protein from the virus, and this links the host cells together to create syncitia.
Viruses can do many different things to a body, they can destroy, corrupt, and take over cells in the body. They can damage parts of the body or make your body destroy itself, viruses are dangerous but sometimes can be cured. Viruses do not have the enzymes needed to carry out life so they use other’s cells, called a host cell, to live and to perform their functions, such as reproduction. Viruses inject their genetic instructions into a cell causing the cell to create viruses materials, which become new viruses, and usually break the side of the cell destroying it. The viruses can cause parts of the brain to react and activate, causing behavioral changes. For example a disease called Toxoplasmosis can alter rat behavior, while it affects humans in a different way than rats, its an example of what viruses can do. The virus switches the triggers that causes neuronal reactions for fear and arousal, so that what causes fear actually cuses arousal. This is so that the rat gets eaten by a cat and a parasite (which injects the virus) inside the rat can reproduce in a cat. A virus doesn’t simply just head to the brain to cause these things, as there is a “shield” around the brain that protects it from everything. This “shield” is called the Blood Brain Barrier, the BBB, which molecul...
Those who favour stem cell research are optimistic about the continued developments in stem cell research will open doors to many breakthrough discoveries in biomedical science. The scientific and ethical questions arise as rapidly as the reaching of milestones in stem cell research. There are two main types of stem cells, namely embryonic stem cells and adult stem cells. Adult stem cells are undifferentiated cells in our body. But they have restricted-range of cells that they can further differentiate. On the contrary, embryonic stem cells have the ability to differentiate into nearly two hundred cell types in the human body, called pluripotency. The process of harvesting embryonic stem cells involves destruction of embryos (Mooney, 2009).
Viruses are the smallest, simplest living things, smaller than bacteria, and the cause of some of the deadliest diseases known to humanity. They are composed chiefly of nucleic acid wrapped in a coat of protein and are able to multiply only from within living cells. As with all other organisms, the virus depends for its ability to obtain energy and carry out the other processes necessary to sustain life, upon its stock of DNA, the hereditary material that makes up the genes, the "instructions" that determine the traits of every living organism. What is interesting about viruses, however, is that their genetic stock is very meagre indeed, so much so that reliance upon it alone cannot enable them to survive. Nonetheless, viruses do persist from one generation to the next, as if they were alive. How this is managed, as it clearly is in both plants, animals and human beings, bears importantly upon the ways in which "life", at least in the case of viruses, may legitimately b...
Viruses are genetic elements enclosed in protein. Although some consider them to be non-living, viruses are important biological entities because they have the capability of producing disease (Raven, 2010). One of the most common viruses in humans is the Epstein- Barr virus or abbreviated (EBV). Throughout this essay, the biology of the Epstein-Barr virus will be examined by discussing characteristics that are associated with this virus such as the process of infection and entry, viral replication, and consequences to the host cell.
First, the internalization of the virus was determined. Three stages were identified for the internalization to occur. These stages are as follows: Stage I- actin dependent movement on the cell surface. Stage II- Unidirectional movement toward the nucleus by use of microtubules. At this stage the virus is inside the cell and headed toward the lysosome. Internalization was found to occur at about 190 seconds. Stage III- Bidirectional movement within the cell and is dependent on microtubules as well. It was determined through experimentation that microtubule movement only occurs once internalization of the virus has
Named the Breakthrough of the year for 1999, human embryonic stem cell research may indeed have the potential to benefit many people who suffer from serious debilitating conditions. Because embryonic stem cells can develop into many different types...
One of the major limitations of iPSCs currently is the presence of the viral vectors used to transduce the reprogramming factors. These have been shown in mice to cause tumors to develop due to the reactivation of c-Myc, an oncogene (a gene with the potential to transform a cell into a tumor cell in certain circumstances). iSPCs have been g...
...ound in our bodies. The trick is that the virus “gets confused” and incorporates the fatal molecule into its growing RNA strands which leads to the prevention of RNA synthesis and thus the entire viral replication.