Question

RNA viruses mutate and evolve faster than other viruses. Why​

Answer 1

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• Viruses undergo evolution and natural selection, just like cell-based life, and most of them evolve rapidly. When two viruses infect a cell at the same time, they may swap genetic material to make new, "mixed" viruses with unique properties. ... RNA viruses have high mutation rates that allow especially fast evolution.

• RNA viruses mutate faster than other DNA viruses because the enzyme RNA dependent RNA polymerase that synthesizes RNA does not have the activity of proof reading while DNA polymerase has this activity. Because of this absence of proof reading, wrong bases are inserted without correction and hence mutation is faster

Answer 2

A virus is a small parasite that cannot reproduce by itself. Once it infects a susceptible cell, however, a virus can direct the cell machinery to produce more viruses. Most viruses have either RNA or DNA as their genetic material. The nucleic acid may be single- or double-stranded.

When the genetic material is single-stranded RNA then it is the RNA virus.

The viruses that have DNA as genetic material are the DNA viruses. They have the mechanism related to the replication of the DNA and the enzymes. The DNA replication enzyme DNA polymerase has a special quality that is the proofreading which prevents the mutations as it eliminates them. whereas in the RNA viruses they don't have this property as they have RNA polymerase and they dot have his tendency and thus the mutation is faster.