A DNA virus is a virus that has DNA as its genetic material and replicates using a DNA-dependent DNA polymerase. The nucleic acid is usually double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) but may also be single-stranded DNA (ssDNA). DNA viruses belong to either Group I or Group II of the Baltimore classification system for viruses. Single-stranded DNA is usually expanded to double-stranded in infected cells. Although Group VII viruses such as hepatitis B contain a DNA genome, they are not considered DNA viruses according to the Baltimore classification, but rather reverse transcribing viruses because they replicate through an RNA intermediate. Notable diseases like smallpox and chickenpox are caused by such DNA viruses.
Read more about DNA Virus: Group I: DsDNA Viruses, Group II: SsDNA Viruses, Satellite Viruses, Bacteriophage Evolution, NCLDVs
Famous quotes containing the words dna and/or virus:
“Here [in London, history] ... seemed the very fabric of things, as if the city were a single growth of stone and brick, uncounted strata of message and meaning, age upon age, generated over the centuries to the dictates of some now all-but-unreadable DNA of commerce and empire.”
—William Gibson (b. 1948)
“[If a woman athlete who had contracted the AIDS virus admitted that she] had been with one hundred or two hundred men, they’d call her a slut, and the corporations would drop her like a lead balloon.”
—Martina Navratilova (b. 1956)