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Mordhaus (Member Profile)

Antigenic Shift - The Spread of a New Mutated Virus

Doc_M says...

^That's getting there, but is not entirely the case for flu viruses.
The case you referred to in the pic was a "bacteriophage" which is what most people picture when they think of a virus. that one only infects bacteria and its genome becomes part of the infected host's. It also exits an infected bacteria by destroying it and flooding out.

Flu on the other hand, does not become a part of your DNA genome and doesn't kill the cell to get out. Here's a nice flash presentation that shows what happens:
http://www.nescent.org/eog/influenza_life_cycle.swf

You can notice the many bits of DNA that get into the cell from the virus. Influenza has a multi-unit genome... you can think of it like our chromosomes sort of. When TWO different strains of flu infect one particular cell, the virus that is produced in the end can have some of the bits of DNA from one and some from the other... in essence, producing a new strain which is a sort of daughter of the original two parents. So in a way, I guess you could call it "sex" metaphorically. It's one of the best ways for producing genetic diversity in flu and it's why you have to get a different flu vaccine every year. They try to make their best estimate what will be the common strain for that year. What a pain.

TED Talks - Bonnie Bassler - How bacteria communicates

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