Question

What are the $5$ characteristics of a virus?

Answer 1

Viruses:

Viruses are infectious microbes that contain a portion of nucleic acids surrounded by a protein coat.

Characteristics of a Virus:

1. They reproduce at a spectacular rate, but only in live host cells.
2. They can be transformed.
3. They are acellular, i.e., they have no cytoplasm or cellular organelles.
4. They do not conduct any metabolism on their own and must replicate using the metabolic machinery of the host cell. In other words, viruses do not grow and divide. Instead, new viral components are synthesized and assembled into the infected host cell.
5. Most viruses have DNA or RNA but not both.