Viral Vectors 101: What is a Virus (and a Viral Vector)?
Type
Blog Post
...hijacking the machinery of the cells they infect. Once they enter a cell, they treat their viral genome...genome as a “payload” that is delivered to the cell. The cell then uses its own machinery to replicate the...replication process whereby one cell copies itself and “splits” into two cells.
Viral vectors
Viruses are ...virus.
From one, come many
After a virion infects a cell, the single particle creates many copies of itself...millions of new copies, which are released from the cell like baby spiders from an egg sac. (Okay, some enveloped...lysing, but they do generally still kill the infected cell.) This is in contrast to bacteria and eukaryotes...means the vector can deliver a genetic payload to a cell but cannot create new particles. As a bonus, this...