Brazil’s Yara Virus – Burning Issues – Free PDF Download

BASICS

• Because of the recent outbreak of the coronavirus, virology has become a hot topic
• Virology is the study of viral – submicroscopic, parasitic particles of genetic material contained in a protein coat – and virus-like agents.

HOW YARA VIRUS IS IN NEWS

THE ISSUE

• The Yara-virus infects amoeba and has genes that have not been described before, something that could challenge how DNA viruses are classified.

AMOEBA

A type of cell or unicellular organism which has the ability to alter its shape, primarily by extending and retracting pseudopods.

VIRUSES

• A virus is a tiny, infectious particle that can reproduce only by infecting a host cell.
• Viruses do not have cells of their own
• Viruses “commandeer” the host cell and use its resources to make more viruses, basically reprogramming it to become a virus factory. Because they can’t reproduce by themselves (without a host)

HOW ARE VIRUSES DIFFERENT FROM BACTERIA?

•  Bacteria are unicellular organisms, unlike virus
• They are living organisms that do not depend on a host cell to reproduce. Because of these differences, bacterial and viral infections are treated very differently. For instance, antibiotics are only helpful against bacteria, not viruses.

VIRUS

Simplified Diagram-Structure of Viruses

GENOME

•  In the fields of molecular biology and genetics, a genome is the genetic material of an organism. It consists of DNA. The genome includes both the genes and the noncoding DNA, as well as mitochondrial DNA and chloroplast DNA. The study of the genome is called genomics.

 ISSUE WITH YARA VIRUS

• Over 90% of the Yaravirus’s genome has not been observed before, the researchers have reported, after using standard protocols for genetic analysis and being unable to find any “classical viral genes”.

NOTES

•  The virus does not infect human cells, according to the researchers.
• The research paper has been written by multiple authors including virologists from Brazil and France. Although it is only now that the virus has been identified, the researchers believe that it has been present on Earth for ages.
• The researchers named the tiny virus the “Yaravirus” after “Yara,” the mother of waters — an important character in the mythological stories of the Tupi-Guarani indigenous tribes

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