Читать книгу Principles of Virology - Jane Flint, S. Jane Flint - Страница 120

Earth abounds with uncountable numbers of viruses of great diversity. However, because taxonomists have devised methods of classifying viruses, the number of identifiable groups is manageable (Chapter 1). One of the contributions of molecular biology has been a detailed analysis of the genetic material of representatives of major virus families. From these studies emerged the principle that the viral genome is the nucleic acid-based repository of the information needed to build, reproduce, and transmit a virus (Box 3.1). These analyses also revealed that the thousands of distinct viruses defined by classical taxonomic methods can be organized into seven groups, based on the structures of their genomes.