Anyone can answer this Science question about viruses?

What characteristics of viruses do you think have made finding drugs to attack them difficult?

Anyone can answer this Science question about viruses?norton ghost

Finding drugs to cure viral disease is difficult because many viruses (not all) mutate their DNA code so quickly. This is due in large part because RNA viruses depend on polymerases that do not "check" the sequence of the newly made viral DNA for mistakes.

Occasionally the new mistakes may actually benefit the virus in terms of infectivity.

Hope my generalized answer helps.

Pass on the good Karma!

Anyone can answer this Science question about viruses?software

Viruses are difficult to attack with drugs for a variety of reasons. For one, the methods that viruses use to reproduce cause errors in the viruses surface proteins. This means that the surface antigens are constantly changing. That means that the drug would have to attack a target that is constantly changing in shape. Very, very difficult to do.

Another problem is that, unlike bacteria, viruses insert themselves directly into the host cell's DNA and use the cell's own protein generating abilities to reproduce. Therefore, a drug that affects the virus at this level would have to attack the cell's own DNA (since the virus has integrated itself into the cell DNA). Because we do not have the ability to directly repair cell DNA, this would mean death for the cell. If enough cells die, then the tissue or organ may be affected and, in extreme cases, the organism itself may die.
Short generation time

High mutation rate

Horizontal Gene Transfers

R-plasmids

Gram +

Endospores