Virus question (biology)
Hello, does anyone have any knowledge on biology or more accurately virology? Because we only had one lesson on it at school. ONE. Basically I was wondering, once a virus has entered the cell, how does it make the cell create copies of itself? I am talking about a DNA virus that infects an animal cell and doesn't attach it's own DNA to the hosts. Don't know the classification.
It seems to me all the information you seek is in that Wiki article.
From the article: "Replication of viruses involves primarily multiplication of the genome. Replication involves synthesis of viral messenger RNA (mRNA) from "early" genes (with exceptions for positive sense RNA viruses), viral protein synthesis, possible assembly of viral proteins, then viral genome replication mediated by early or regulatory protein expression. This may be followed, for complex viruses with larger genomes, by one or more further rounds of mRNA synthesis: "late" gene expression is, in general, of structural or virion proteins."
"The genome replication of most DNA viruses takes place in the cell's nucleus. If the cell has the appropriate receptor on its surface, these viruses enter the cell sometimes by direct fusion with the cell membrane (e.g., herpesviruses) or – more usually – by receptor-mediated endocytosis. Most DNA viruses are entirely dependent on the host cell's DNA and RNA synthesising machinery, and RNA processing machinery; however, viruses with larger genomes may encode much of this machinery themselves. In eukaryotes the viral genome must cross the cell's nuclear membrane to access this machinery, while in bacteria it need only enter the cell."
The virus uses the host cell's own cellular machinery and injects its own DNA into the host cell's RNA synthesizing machinery which causes it to produce the viral DNA instead of the cell the was intended. This information doesn't inform you that it does happen or what happens after the virus is inside the cell, it explains in some detail how the virus causes a host cell to replicate using the virus's DNA from the nucleus rather than the host's.