In article <38dtp2INNecq at early-bird.think.com>,
Ian A. York <york at mbcrr.dfci.harvard.edu> wrote:
>In article <Cy24L5.H9t at eecs.nwu.edu> markb at hook.eecs.nwu.edu (Mark E. Brodsky) writes:
>>Recently, I was browsing a Virology WWW page, when I came across a
>>referance to "Diploid" viruses. It seemed to imply that these were not
>>diploid in the usual sense of the word, but the server did not
>>elaborate any more on the subject. Could someone please explain what
>>is meant by a diploid virus? Thank you.
>>I'm not sure if this is what was meant, but herpes simplex virus (and
>most of the other herpes viruses) are pseduodiploid for some of their
>genes. This is because their genome contains repeated regions which
>encode a couple of genes: (ascii herpes simplex virus: not to scale)
>>> ____ ________ __
> |____|---------------------------------|____|___|---------------|__|
> ^^^^^^ b k ^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^
> gene a a ^^^^^ ^^^^
> l m t l
>>As this schematic is supposed to show, genes "a" and "l" are doploid,
>while genes "b" to "k" and "m" to "t" are not.
>Thank you. Others have written me saying that retroviruses have two
copies of their genome, such is the case with HIV for instance. Does
anyone know why this is? I thought viruses were supposed to be models
of efficiency. Aren't two copies of the same genome wasteful if the
organism doesn't reproduce sexually?
--
"I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I'm not sure
you realize that what you heard is not what I meant."
Mark E. Brodsky E-mail: mark-brodsky at nwu.edu
Northwestern University or markb at casbah.acns.nwu.edu
