The Viral Talk

Episode 11 - Acute vs persistent viral infections

Listen Later

What are the differences between acute and persistent viral infections? How can certain viruses stay with us forever and never be cleared? This and much more in this episode of The Viral Talk.

 

Key takeaways:

  • An acute infection is characterized by a sudden or rapid development of disease, that can either be resolved quickly or lead to death;
  • In a persistent infection, the virus is not cleared by our body, and it either becomes latent (e.g Herpes Simplex Virus) or it keeps replicating at low levels for very long periods of time (e.g. Hepatitis B Virus, HIV);
  • For a latent infection to become a persistent infection,
    • it needs two characteristics:  persistence and reversibility.
  • Reversibility is the ability of a virus to resume
    • active viral replication after undergoing latency, persistence is the ability
    to stay in our body without being eliminated/cleared for a long period of time.
  • A latent virus that lacks a way to be ‘re-activated’
    • only causes dead-end infections.
  • Herpesviruses and Retroviruses are the only known
    • viral families able to undergo latency.
  • Latency is a successful survival strategy that allows
    • viruses to avoid being cleared by the host’s defences.
  • In addition to latent viral infections, there is
    • another type of infection which is chronic viral infections.
  • In chronic infections, the virus keeps replicating
    • inside the host for long periods of time without being cleared, causing low levels of pathology. The best example for this is HIV, followed by Hepatitis B virus.
    • Constant rounds of infection by these viruses lead to
      • the onset of the diseases they’re known for, AIDS and hepatitis, respectively.


      Articles for the most interested:

      General definition of persistent viral infections - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK8538/

      Common threads in persistent viral infections - https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/jvi.01905-09

      Retroviruses in the human genome - https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2018.02039/full 

      How do viruses go latent? - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2914632/#:~:text=In%20latent%20infection%2C%20the%20full,additional%20properties%3A%20persistence%20and%20reversibility.

      Follow the Viral Talk on IG -
      https://www.instagram.com/the_viral_talk_/


      On Twitter - https://twitter.com/The_Viral_Talk

      And Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-viral-talk/

       

      ...more
      View all episodesView all episodes
      Download on the App Store
      The Viral TalkBy Federico De Angelis, Bobbie-Anne Turner