Identify the viral family that infects skin, mucosa, and nerve cells; causes infections that can recur because of latency; and has polyhedral geometry.

Question

Accepted Answer

Hello, everyone. Let's take a look at our next question. What characteristic feature of herpes vide infections leads to their ability to recur a rapid mutation rate, B ability to infect multiple hosts c production of toxins or D establishment of latency. So, herpes verity infections do have this ability to lie dormant for a long time and then recur causing an active infection symptoms after gaps or long periods in between where there's almost no detectable virus whatsoever. And the characteristic that leads to this ability is choice d establishment of latency and the latent period is that dormancy period when again, there's the levels of virus are so low as to be almost undetectable. But then at various times, the virus can reactivate and cause illness again. So two classic examples of this are HSV herpes simplex virus, uh cause of cold sores. You can, most people that suffer from these, they'll have an outbreak of cold sore and then it'll go away and be gone for a length of time and then reoccur another example would be VZ the varicella zoster virus or otherwise better known as chicken pox. So you have a chickenpox infection which causes this initial illness, the virus goes dormant and then can reactivate years and years and years later, infecting a nerve in the body and cause shingles. So to be thorough, let's look at our other answer. Choices. Choice, a rapid mutation rate. Well, this can give a virus an ability to evade the immune system in the sense that a antibodies that are generated against the infection by the virus, the virus quickly mutates and those antibodies are no longer effective. This also means that for these viruses that have these rapid mutation rates, it's very difficult to make a successful vaccine. Because as soon as you have a vaccine for a strain, the virus can mutate enough. So that that vaccine is no longer effective. So this does have an effect but not, this is not what causes the ability of herpes virus infections to recur choice b ability to infect multiple hosts. Again, this wouldn't be something that leads to that recurring infection choice c production of toxins. Well, this would increase the virulence of a virus, make it more dangerous if it produces toxins, dangerous to the organism. But it doesn't allow this ability to recur. So not our answer choice. So once again, the characteristic feature of herpes verde infections that leads to their ability to recur is choice d establishment of latency. See you in the next video.

Identify the viral family that infects skin, mucosa, and nerve cells; causes infections that can recur because of latency; and has polyhedral geometry.

Verified Solution

Key Concepts

Viral Families

Latency in Viral Infections

Polyhedral Geometry of Viruses