General Features of Virus Reproduction

The basic problem of virus replication can be simply put the virus must somehow induce a living host cell to synthesize all of the essential components needed to make more virus particles. These components must then be assembled into the proper structure and the new virus particles must escape from the cell and infect other cells. The various phases of this replication process in a bacteriophage can be categorized in seven steps  

Attachment (adsorption) of the virion to a susceptible host cell  

Early steps in replication of the virus nucleic acid, in which the host cell biosynthetic machinery is altered as a prelude to virus nucleic acid synthesis. Virus-specific enzymes may be made  

Assembly of nucleic acid and protein subunits (and membrane components in enveloped viruses) into new virus particles  

Release of mature virus particles from the cell (lysis). 

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