Overview A virus is a microscopic infectious particle that consists of an RNA or DNA genome enclosed in a protein shell. It is not able to reproduce on ...

Viruses are extraordinarily diverse in shape and size, but they all have several structural features in common. All viruses have a core that contains a ...

Bacteriophages, also known as phages, are specialized viruses that infect bacteria. A key characteristic of phages is their distinctive ...

In contrast to the lytic cycle, phages infecting bacteria via the lysogenic cycle do not immediately kill their host cell. Instead, they combine their ...

Retroviruses have a single-stranded RNA genome that undergoes a special form of replication. Once the retrovirus has entered the host cell, an enzyme ...

Cells are sometimes infected by more than one virus at once. When two viruses disassemble to expose their genomes for replication in the same cell, ...

A mutation is a change in the sequence of bases of DNA or RNA in a genome. Some mutations occur during replication of the genome due to errors made by the ...