Viruses

• Viruses can have either DNA or RNA contained in a capsid
• Viruses can be protected by a lipid envelope which conceals them from white blood cells
• A virus can have glycoproteins which allow for attachment onto a host cell
• HIV will bind to T helper cells CD4 receptors and will inject its RNA and a reverse transcriptase enzyme into the host cell
• The reverse transcriptase enzyme will translate the RNA into DNA which will then replicate to become double stranded
• Once double stranded, the HIV DNA will integrate into the host cells DNA becoming proviral, from here, the host cell will replicate HIV components such as the RNA and capsid, new HIV virons will be assembled in the cytoplasm and burst from the cell