Viral entry

Viral entry is the earliest stage of infection in the viral life cycle, as the virus comes into contact with the host cell and introduces viral material into the cell. The major steps involved in viral entry are shown below. Despite the variation among viruses, there are several shared generalities concerning viral entry. How a virus enters a cell is different depending on the type of virus it is. A virus with a nonenveloped capsid enters the cell by attaching to the attachment factor located on a host cell. It then enters the cell by endocytosis or by making a hole in the membrane of the host cell and inserting its viral genome. Cell entry by enveloped viruses is more complicated. Enveloped viruses enter the cell by attaching to an attachment factor located on the surface of the host cell. They then enter by endocytosis or a direct membrane fusion event. The fusion event is when the virus membrane and the host cell membrane fuse together allowing a virus to enter. It does this by attachment – or adsorption – onto a susceptible cell; a cell which holds a receptor that the virus can bind to. The receptors on the viral envelope effectively become connected to complementary receptors on the cell membrane. This attachment causes the two membranes to remain in mutual proximity, favoring further interactions between surface proteins. This is also the first requisite that must be satisfied before a cell can become infected. Satisfaction of this requisite makes the cell susceptible. Viruses that exhibit this behavior include many enveloped viruses such as HIV and herpes simplex virus. These basic ideas extend to viruses that infect bacteria, known as bacteriophages (or simply phages). Typical phages have long tails used to attach to receptors on the bacterial surface and inject their viral genome. Prior to entry, a virus must attach to a host cell. Attachment is achieved when specific proteins on the viral capsid or viral envelope bind to specific proteins called receptor proteins on the cell membrane of the target cell.