Viruses

• viruses are not living cells and so antivirals must work by inhibiting virus replication
• viruses have a capsid, nucleic acid and an envolope
• viruses can be difficult to treat so you need to work on preventing the spread
• using untested medication has unethical implications as it could kill a person
• lysogenic viruses insert the DNA into host cell DNA so can replicate naturally with the cell
• lytic viruses insert DNA into the cytoplasm of host cell so is replicated independantly
• lytic viruses leads to lysis of the host cell where large number of viruses are ready and explode out of the cell