linkedin post 2017-04-17 04:45:58

KEY FACTORS OF VIRUSES. “Most pathogens have large population sizes and short generation times. This is particularly true for viruses. The complete replication-cycle of a virus within a host cell often takes only a few hours and results in many thousands new viruses. Because the viral RNA-polymerase does not possess a proof-reading-function, faulty nucleotides are integrated during replication with a likelihood of 10(-3) to 10(-4), which results in high mutation rates. In fact, the error rate of the viral RNA-polymerase is 1000 times higher than the error rate of the human DNA- polymerase.”

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