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Question

Are viruses and viroids the same?


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Solution

Virus:

  1. Viruses are microscopic infectious agents that infect all life forms.

Viroids:

  1. Viroids are infectious agents that mainly infect plants.

Differences between viruses and viroids:

Viruses

Viroids

1. Viruses are infectious microbes that infect any living host organisms. 1. Viroids are infectious viral particles that mainly infect plants and are smaller than viruses.
2. The genetic information can be present either as DNA or RNA. 2. The genetic content is contained only as single-stranded RNA molecules.
3. The nucleic acids are contained within a protein coat.3. No protein coat is present in viroids.
4. Examples of viruses are adenoviruses, Epstein-Barr virus, and hepatitis C virus.4. Examples of viroids include Avsunviroidae and potato spindle tuber viroid.

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