Virus and Bacterium

VIRUS AND BACTERIUM
A virus is a small infectious agent that replicates only inside the living cells of

otherorganisms. Viruses can infect all types of life forms,
from animals and plants tomicroorganisms, including bacteria and archaea.
Since Dmitri Ivanovsky's 1892 article describing a non-bacterial pathogen infecting
tobacco plants, and the discovery of the tobacco mosaic virus by Martinus Beijerinckin 1898,
about 5,000 viruses have been described in detail, although there are millions of different
types. Viruses are found in almost every ecosystem on Earth and are the most abundant type
of biological entity. The study of viruses is known as virology, a sub-speciality
of microbiology.
Virus particles (known as virions) consist of two or three parts: i) the genetic
material made from either DNA or RNA, long molecules that carry genetic information; ii)
a protein coat that protects these genes; and in some cases iii) anenvelope of lipids that
surrounds the protein coat when they are outside a cell. The shapes of viruses range from
simple helical and icosahedral forms to more complex structures. The average virus is about
one one-hundredth the size of the average bacterium. Most viruses are too small to be seen
directly with an optical microscope.
The origins of viruses in the evolutionary history of life are unclear: some may
haveevolved from plasmids—pieces of DNA that can move between cells—while others may
have evolved from bacteria. In evolution, viruses are an important means ofhorizontal gene
transfer, which increases genetic diversity. Viruses are considered by some to be a life form,
because they carry genetic material, reproduce, and evolve through natural selection.
However they lack key characteristics (such as cell structure) that are generally considered
necessary to count as life. Because they possess some but not all such qualities, viruses have
been described as "organisms at the edge of life".
Viruses spread in many ways; viruses in plants are often transmitted from plant to
plant by insects that feed on plant sap, such as aphids; viruses in animals can be carried
by blood-sucking insects. These disease-bearing organisms are known as vectors. Influenza
viruses are spread by coughing and sneezing. Norovirus and rotavirus, common causes of
viralgastroenteritis, are transmitted by the faecal–oral route and are passed from person to
person by contact, entering the body in food or water. HIV is one of several viruses
transmitted through sexual contact and by exposure to infected blood. The range of host cells
that a virus can infect is called its "host range". This can be narrow or, as when a virus is
capable of infecting many species, broad.
Viral infections in animals provoke an immune response that usually eliminates the
infecting virus. Immune responses can also be produced by vaccines, which confer
an artificially acquired immunity to the specific viral infection. However, some viruses
including those that cause AIDS and viral hepatitis evade these immune responses and result
in chronic infections.Antibiotics have no effect on viruses, but several antiviral drugs have
been developed.
Bacteria (bacterium) constitute a large domainof prokaryotic microorganisms.
Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria have a number of shapes, ranging
from spheres to rods and spirals. Bacteria were among the first life forms to appear on Earth,
and are present in most of its habitats. Bacteria inhabit soil, water, acidic hot
springs, radioactive waste, and the deep portions of Earth's crust. Bacteria also live
in symbiotic and parasitic relationships with plants and animals. They are also known to have
flourished in manned spacecraft.
There are typically 40 million bacterial cells in a gram of soil and a million bacterial
cells in a millilitre of fresh water. There are approximately 5×1030 bacteria on Earth, forming
a biomass which exceeds that of all plants and animals. Bacteria are vital in recycling
nutrients, with many of the stages in nutrient cycles dependent on these organisms, such as
the fixation of nitrogen from the atmosphere and putrefaction. In the biological communities
surrounding hydrothermal vents and cold seeps, bacteria provide the nutrients needed to
sustain life by converting dissolved compounds such as hydrogen sulphide and methane to
energy. On 17 March 2013, researchers reported data that suggested bacterial life forms
thrive in the Mariana Trench, which with a depth of up to 11 kilometres is the deepest part of
the Earth's oceans. Other researchers reported related studies that microbes thrive inside rocks
up to 580 metres below the sea floor under 2.6 kilometres of ocean off the coast of the
northwestern United States. According to one of the researchers,"You can find microbes
everywhere — they're extremely adaptable to conditions, and survive wherever they are."
Most bacteria have not been characterized, and only about half of thephyla of bacteria
have species that can be grown in the laboratory. The study of bacteria is known
as bacteriology, a branch of microbiology.
There are approximately ten times as many bacterial cells in the human flora as there
are human cells in the body, with the largest number of the human flora being in the gut flora,
and a large number on the skin. The vast majority of the bacteria in the body are rendered
harmless by the protective effects of the immune system, and some are beneficial. However,
several species of bacteria are pathogenic and causeinfectious diseases,
including cholera, syphilis, anthrax, leprosy, andbubonic plague. The most common fatal
bacterial diseases arerespiratory infections, with tuberculosis alone killing about 2 million
people per year, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. In developed countries, antibiotics are used to
treat bacterial infections and are also used in farming, making antibiotic resistance a growing
problem. In industry, bacteria are important in sewage treatment and the breakdown of oil
spills, the production of cheese and yogurt through fermentation, and the recovery of gold,
palladium, copper and other metals in the mining sector, as well as in biotechnology, and the
manufacture of antibiotics and other chemicals.
Once regarded as plants constituting the class Schizomycetes, bacteria are now
classified as prokaryotes. Unlike cells of animals and othereukaryotes, bacterial cells do not
contain a nucleus and rarely harbourmembrane-bound organelles. Although the
term bacteria traditionally included all prokaryotes, the scientific classification changed after
the discovery in the 1990s that prokaryotes consist of two very different groups of organisms
that evolved from an ancient common ancestor. These evolutionary domains are
called Bacteria and Archaea.

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VIRUS AND BACTERIUM

A virus is a small infectious agent that replicates only inside the living cells of

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