The Viral Talk

Episode 9 - How do viruses cause disease?

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How do viruses cause disease? What are the processes that make us sick and what can we do about it? This and much more in this episode of The Viral Talk.



Takeaways:

  • When viruses infect our cells they hijack them and sequester all the resources that the cell might need to stay alive, causing it to malfunction and die.
    • Infected cells also recognize that they're infected and 'self-destruct' to stop the infection.
    • When cells recognize a virus they release signals that call in the immune system, which leads to inflammation and cell death.
    • The virulence of a virus is dependent both on its genomic content and its 'tropism' aka the tissues and cells that it infects.
    • Influenza has a preference for cells of the respiratory tract and causes respiratory infections. HIV infects immune cells and therefore causes AIDS.
    • Some viruses like Ebolaviruses do not have a preferred cell and are able to infect most of them, causing very severe, generalised infections.
    • The type of disease is also due to mutations in our genome, which can make us more or less prone to severe immune responses called 'cytokine storms'.


      • Links and scientific papers:


      ...more
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      The Viral TalkBy Federico De Angelis, Bobbie-Anne Turner