How viruses affect humans?
I need to write a report on this.
Answers
Answer:
At the molecular level, viruses invade cells and manipulate them to replicate, survive, and cause disease. Since they depend on human cells for their life cycle, one way viruses co-opt cellular machinery is through protein-protein interactions within their cell host. Similarly, cells respond to infection by initiating immune responses that control and limit viral replication -- these too, depend on protein-protein interactions.
To date, considerable effort has been invested in identifying these key interactions -- and many of these efforts have resulted in many fundamental discoveries, some with therapeutic implications. However, traditional methods are limited in terms of scalability, efficiency, and even access. To address this challenge, Dr. Shapira and his collaborators developed and implemented a computational framework, P-HIPSTER, that infers interactions between pathogen and human proteins -- the building blocks of viruses and cells.
Until now, our knowledge about many viruses that infect people is limited to their genome sequences. Yet for most viruses, little has been uncovered about the underlying biological interactions that drive these relationships and give rise to disease.
Explanation:
pls mark as brainliest
Answer:
There is a close connection between microbes and humans. Experts believe about half of all human DNA originated from viruses that infected and embedded their nucleic acid in our ancestors’ egg and sperm cells.
Microbes occupy all of our body surfaces, including the skin, gut, and mucous membranes. In fact, our bodies contain at least 10 times more bacterial cells than human ones, blurring the line between where microbes end and humans begin. Microbes in the human gastrointestinal tract alone comprise at least 10 trillion organisms, representing more than 1,000 species, which are thought to prevent the gut from being colonized by disease-causing organisms. Among their other beneficial roles, microbes synthesize vitamins, break down food into absorbable nutrients, and stimulate our immune systems.
The vast majority of microbes establish themselves as persistent “colonists,” thriving in complex communities within and on our bodies. In many cases, the microbes derive benefits without harming us; in other cases, both host and microbe benefit.
From the moment we are born, microbes begin to colonize our bodies
Figure
From the moment we are born, microbes begin to colonize our bodies. Each of us has a unique set of microbial communities, which are believed to play an important role in digestion and in protection from disease.
Lactobacillus bacteria, which produce lactic acid to help with digestion
Figure
Lactobacillus bacteria, which produce lactic acid to help with digestion.
And though some microbes make us sick and even kill us, in the long run they have a shared interest in our survival. For these tiny invaders, a dead host is a dead end.
The success of microorganisms is due to their remarkable adaptability. Through natural selection, organisms that are genetically better suited to their surroundings have more offspring and transmit their desirable traits to future generations. This process operates far more efficiently in the microbial world than in people. Humans produce a new generation every 20 years or so; bacteria do it every 20 to 30 minutes, and viruses even faster. Because they reproduce so quickly, microorganisms can assemble in enormous numbers with great variety in their communities. If their environment suddenly changes, the community’s genetic variations make it more likely that some will survive. This gives microbes a huge advantage over humans when it comes to adapting for survival.
Types of Microbes
There are five major categories of infectious agents: Viruses, bacteria, fungi, protozoa, and helminths.
Viruses
Viruses are tiny, ranging in size from about 20 to 400 nanometers in diameter (see page 9). Billions can fit on the head of a pin. Some are rod shaped; others are round and 20 sided; and yet others have fanciful forms, with multisided “heads” and cylindrical “tails.”
Viruses are simply packets of nucleic acid, either DNA or RNA, surrounded by a protein shell and sometimes fatty materials called lipids. Outside a living cell, a virus is a dormant particle, lacking the raw materials for reproduction. Only when it enters a host cell does it go into action, hijacking the cell’s metabolic machinery to produce copies of itself that may burst out of infected cells or simply bud off a cell membrane. This lack of self-sufficiency means that viruses cannot be cultured in artificial media for scientific research or vaccine development; they can be grown only in living cells, fertilized eggs, tissue cultures, or bacteria.
An electron micrograph of an influenza virus particle, showing details of its structure
Figure
An electron micrograph of an influenza virus particle, showing details of its structure.
Viruses are responsible for a wide range of diseases, including the common cold, measles, chicken pox, genital herpes, and influenza. Many of the emerging infectious diseases, such as AIDS and SARS, are caused by viruses.
Bacteria
Bacteria are 10 to 100 times larger than viruses and are more self-sufficient. These single-celled organisms, generally visible under a low-powered microscope, come in three shapes: spherical (coccus), rodlike (bacillus), and curved (vibrio, spirillum, or spirochete).