About viral diseases...

[mith]

problem is even a linux one failed, I'd prefer manual for now

[canalon]

problem is even a linux one failed, I'd prefer manual for now

Well if it is less than 10 years old it is probaby already full of electronics anyway. But at least they use still proprietary systems that are really tested and redundant. But we are a bit off-topic right now. let's stop quickly before the moderators catch us and warn us or worse

[MrMistery]

watch it, Dave and Patrick. I am putting you on probation

[victor]

um, what I think is like this...maybe you can tell ur teacher.
antibiotics are compounds that usually interact with the synthesis of bacterial cell wall which is murein. this synthesis is started in the cytoplasm and later will be carried out to be added into the the previous cell wall in the cell wall region. to carry out this pre-murein it needs the transport molecules like UTP and bactoprenols. These antibiotics usually interact with these two, whether one or both, so the new bacterial cell wall cannot be synthesized. Other antibiotics usually interact with bacterial ribosomes and thus prevent them from doing protein synthesis.

Viruses, on the other side, lack either murein or ribosomes, so it cannot be affected by antibiotics. Antiviral is used to take care these very tiny non-organism, which usually affecting the genetic material of the virus and the processes that involving viruses' genetic material. Example is AZT for HIV treatment which is an nucleoside analogs for integrase, so the enzyme integrates the DNA virus (via reverse transcriptase) into this nucleoside analog, not into the host genome.

[MrMistery]

AZT(azido-thymine) is an analog of thymine. revers-transcriptase is not so specific as DNA polymerase, so it incorporates this analog instead of thymine into the nucleotide chain it produces. However, AZT is not similar enough to tymine to give it the same pairing properties, so the chain produced is pretty much useless.

[lara]

look at it this way-
suppose an antibiotic has the function of lysing the bacterial cells.then is it not possible that its action facilitates the release of virions and speeds up the infection?

[canalon]

Virus that infects bacteria do not infect human (and vice versa) so this is a non issue.

[intali]

Virus that infects bacteria do not infect human (and vice versa) so this is a non issue.

The virus itself doesn't infect the human host, but some diseases such as pneumonia are caused by bacteria only after they have been infected by the virus, so it is somewhat of an issue. If you use an antibiotic to kill the bacteria before they are able to replicate the viral genome and begin producing the toxins then you stop the production of the toxins, ending the disease.

[MrMistery]

One of us misunderstood our microbiology textbooks. From how I understand it, those deseases are caused by strains of bacteria that have already incorporated the prophage genes. You don't get the bacteria first, then the virus infects it, and then you get the desease. No?

[intali]

The impression that I got was that it could work either way, either the "normal" bacteria could enter your body and then be infected by the phage or the phage infected bacteria could enter your body. But either way, wouldn't killing the bacteria with the phage genome cause the illness to cease? And even though a bacteria is inside of the host doesn't mean that they couldn't enter the lytic cycle at any point?

[MrMistery]

Well yes, it CAN happen either way. however since it is highly improbable for that particular virus to enter the body of an individual carrying that bacteria, i have always interpreted it with the second explanation.
About the second part of your post: could you elaborate? I don't understand. It's possibly because it is very late

[intali]

About the second part of your post: could you elaborate? I don't understand. It's possibly because it is very late

Since the virus can only infect very specific range of host cells, which we are saying in this case is the bacteria, they are unable to affect any other cells in the human body, whether human or otherwise. So, if we kill the bacteria which is succeptable to the phage infection, we prevent the phage from injecting it's genome into any cells. Since the viral genome is no longer in any cell, the toxins are no longer produced so the disease is"gone".

So, bringing this back to the original question, antibiotics can not kill a virus, but they can destroy the bacteria in the body, which in some cases are the actual producers of the toxins.