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From: joes@castor.Eng.Sun.COM (Joe Sirott)
Newsgroups: sci.med.aids
Subject: Re: protien shell
Message-ID: <36982@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU>
Date: 11 Jul 90 20:40:53 GMT
References: <36887@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU>
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Note:	Copyright 1990 by Daniel R. Greening.  Permission granted for
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In article <36887@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU> Richard.DeWald@f70.n382.z1.fidonet.org (Richard DeWald) writes:
>What is it that you want to know?  Generally most all virii are protein 
>encapsulated.  The protein shell attaches to the membrane of the target cell 
>and generally the nucleic acid portion of the virus is introduced into the 
>cell.  What happens from there is dependent on the particular virus you are 
>interested in.  The HIV RNA (the variety of nucleic acid present here) gets 
>inserted into a strand of T-cell RNA already operating within the machinery of 
>the T-lymphocyute cell.  The cell then dutifully goes about the business of 
>making more HIV.  This interrupts the normal activity of this cell (which is 
>the prevention of infectious disease) and eventually kills it.
>
Actually, I believe HIV viral RNA is packaged with a small amount of
reverse transcriptase; both are released inside the targeted cell. The
reverse transcriptase then manufactures double stranded DNA from the RNA
template; this DNA is then integrated into the host genome. The host cell
transcription machinery then processes the virus-produced DNA as if it were
its own DNA, rather than foreign DNA. The result-- more HIV viruses. 
Incidentally, if I remember correctly, AZT works by inhibiting the action of reverse 
transcriptase.