How do diseases mutate themselves?

[Nocturnal]

Like this new form of pneumonia... how did it become such a new and stronger form of an already existing disease?

 

[McPhreak]

In a nutshell: DNA or RNA replication does not have perfect fidelity. Mutations will occur naturally. Stresses in the environment select for those with advantageous mutations. If you wait long enough, the population will begin to shift toward the advantageous mutation.

There are other factors involved as well. This would just be one of them.

 

[yakko]

Evolution.

 

[Amused]

Drug resistent starins are created by the drugs themselves. The few viruses left after drug treatment are those viruses most able to resist drug treatment. Those viruses them pass on their genetic code to new viruses and repopulate. Now you have an entire drug resistant strain.

Kind of like Humans and Small pox. The Europeans were largely immune to small pox because theose who were not had been killed off long before. The Native Americans were not, and their numbers were decimated by the disease.

It works like that. The ones that cannot survive in a new environment, die, those that can live and repopulate.

 

[numark]

When you consider that bacteria multiply at an extremely fast rate, evolution is going to occur at a much, much faster rate than humans, and their environment isn't exactly conducive to perfect copies with all of the stresses they go through. It's inevitable, when one mutated bacterium can create thousands to millions of copies of itself.

 

[Eli]

Originally posted by: Nocturnal
Like this new form of pneumonia... how did it become such a new and stronger form of an already existing disease?

The same way any other organism does. They breed with another compatible similar organism, swapping genes.. creating a new one.

Sometimes it happens by accident(pneumonia), sometimes it happens on purpose(africanized honeybees).

 

[numark]

Originally posted by: Amused
Drug resistent starins are created by the drugs themselves. The few viruses left after drug treatment are those viruses most able to resist drug treatment. Those viruses them pass on their genetic code to new viruses and repopulate. Now you have an entire drug resistant strain.

Kind of like Humans and Small pox. The Europeans were largely immune to small pox because theose who were not had been killed off long before. The Native Americans were not, and their numbers were decimated by the disease

Small correction: antibiotics don't kill viruses, they kill bacteria. 🙂 So just replace the word "viruses" in the above paragraph with "bacteria".

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: numark

Originally posted by: Amused
Drug resistent starins are created by the drugs themselves. The few viruses left after drug treatment are those viruses most able to resist drug treatment. Those viruses them pass on their genetic code to new viruses and repopulate. Now you have an entire drug resistant strain.

Kind of like Humans and Small pox. The Europeans were largely immune to small pox because theose who were not had been killed off long before. The Native Americans were not, and their numbers were decimated by the disease

Small correction: antibiotics don't kill viruses, they kill bacteria. 🙂 So just replace the word "viruses" in the above paragraph with "bacteria".

Actualy, there are antiviral medications causing drug resistent viruses. But yes, the same thing applies to bacteria and antibiotics.

 

[Lonyo]

If you've got 5 bacteria, all are killed by a drug, but they only get exposed to the drug after multiplying (so there are 10 bacteria), and 4 copies are the same as the original, one is mutated so it's immune, you have 10 bacteria, 9 of which get killed by the drug, and one which isn't, which then multiplies.
It's basically survival of the fittest, in this case the fittest is the one which isn't killed by the drug, therefore it's immune to it and in a way "stronger".

 

[Eli]

Originally posted by: Amused

Originally posted by: numark

Originally posted by: Amused
Drug resistent starins are created by the drugs themselves. The few viruses left after drug treatment are those viruses most able to resist drug treatment. Those viruses them pass on their genetic code to new viruses and repopulate. Now you have an entire drug resistant strain.

Kind of like Humans and Small pox. The Europeans were largely immune to small pox because theose who were not had been killed off long before. The Native Americans were not, and their numbers were decimated by the disease

Small correction: antibiotics don't kill viruses, they kill bacteria. 🙂 So just replace the word "viruses" in the above paragraph with "bacteria".

Actualy, there are antiviral medications causing drug resistent viruses. But yes, the same thing applies to bacteria and antibiotics.

We do not have any cure for any virus, except maybe one of the Hepatitis strains.

Antibiotics are for bacteria.

 

[Ameesh]

Originally posted by: yakko
Evolution.

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: Eli

Originally posted by: Amused

Originally posted by: numark

Originally posted by: Amused
Drug resistent starins are created by the drugs themselves. The few viruses left after drug treatment are those viruses most able to resist drug treatment. Those viruses them pass on their genetic code to new viruses and repopulate. Now you have an entire drug resistant strain.

Kind of like Humans and Small pox. The Europeans were largely immune to small pox because theose who were not had been killed off long before. The Native Americans were not, and their numbers were decimated by the disease

Small correction: antibiotics don't kill viruses, they kill bacteria. 🙂 So just replace the word "viruses" in the above paragraph with "bacteria".

Actualy, there are antiviral medications causing drug resistent viruses. But yes, the same thing applies to bacteria and antibiotics.

We do not have any cure for any virus, except maybe one of the Hepatitis strains.

Antibiotics are for bacteria.

We have antiviral medications that work quite well against viruses. Why do you think people with HIV are living so long these days? They may not be a "cure" but that's not for a lack of ability to kill viruses in the human body with drugs, it's a lack of ability to kill viruses in lymph nodes.

In my original post, did I SAY "antibiotics?" No. I was talking about viruses, and their ability to build resistance to antiviral drugs.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Originally posted by: McPhreak
In a nutshell: DNA or RNA replication does not have perfect fidelity. Mutations will occur naturally. Stresses in the environment select for those with advantageous mutations. If you wait long enough, the population will begin to shift toward the advantageous mutation.

There are other factors involved as well. This would just be one of them.

Yep. Chemicals or natural radiation are among several possibilities.
This is probably a spontaneous mutation. Happens all the time, but a spontaneous mutation of what is the question.

 

[Amused]

BTW, we have effective antiviral treatments for more than just Hepatitis.

HIV, HPV, Herpes, the flu, and more I can't think of now all have rather effective antiviral treatments available.

 

[BennyD]

i thought viri worked by taking over bacteria and using them to create more viri.

if this is true then wouldn't killing the bacteria stifle the viri?

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: BennyD
i thought viri worked by taking over bacteria and using them to create more viri.

if this is true then wouldn't killing the bacteria stifle the viri?

No, viruses replicate by taking over healthy cells. The cells taken over depend on the virus.

 

[kleinesarschloch]

god mutates disease. it is not appropriate for mortals to speculate about that. 😛

 

[McPhreak]

Originally posted by: BennyD
i thought viri worked by taking over bacteria and using them to create more viri.

if this is true then wouldn't killing the bacteria stifle the viri?

You're talking about 2 different types. The ones that infect and lyse bacteria are called bacteriophages. HIV is not a bacteriophage.

 

[Growltiger]

Some specific examples:

Flu = Tamiflu
Herpes = Valtrex, Zovirax

 

[numark]

Originally posted by: Amused

Originally posted by: numark

Originally posted by: Amused
Drug resistent starins are created by the drugs themselves. The few viruses left after drug treatment are those viruses most able to resist drug treatment. Those viruses them pass on their genetic code to new viruses and repopulate. Now you have an entire drug resistant strain.

Kind of like Humans and Small pox. The Europeans were largely immune to small pox because theose who were not had been killed off long before. The Native Americans were not, and their numbers were decimated by the disease

Small correction: antibiotics don't kill viruses, they kill bacteria. 🙂 So just replace the word "viruses" in the above paragraph with "bacteria".

Actualy, there are antiviral medications causing drug resistent viruses. But yes, the same thing applies to bacteria and antibiotics.

Yeah, yeah, I knew that 😛 It's been too long of a day already...

 

[theNEOone]

Originally posted by: Eli

Originally posted by: Nocturnal
Like this new form of pneumonia... how did it become such a new and stronger form of an already existing disease?

The same way any other organism does. They breed with another compatible similar organism, swapping genes.. creating a new one.

Sometimes it happens by accident(pneumonia), sometimes it happens on purpose(africanized honeybees).

um, no. viruses don't "breed" or "swap genes" in the way you're explaining it. you can't compare a virus (which for the most part isn't even considered a form of life) to a multicellular organism such as a honey bee.

McPhreaks explanation (along w/ Hayabusarider's additions) is the simplest but most accurate way of answering your question.

 

[theNEOone]

Originally posted by: Amused

Originally posted by: BennyD
i thought viri worked by taking over bacteria and using them to create more viri.

if this is true then wouldn't killing the bacteria stifle the viri?

No, viruses replicate by taking over healthy cells. The cells taken over depend on the virus.

your first part is correct, but you second statement is swapped. because viruses replicate by infecting cells, it is they that rely on cells. infected cells don't really "rely" on viruses, in fact a great majority of viruses operate to kill their host cell after a certain amount of time.

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: theNEOone

Originally posted by: Amused

Originally posted by: BennyD
i thought viri worked by taking over bacteria and using them to create more viri.

if this is true then wouldn't killing the bacteria stifle the viri?

No, viruses replicate by taking over healthy cells. The cells taken over depend on the virus.

your first part is correct, but you second statement is swapped. because viruses replicate by infecting cells, it is they that rely on cells. infected cells don't really "rely" on viruses, in fact a great majority of viruses operate to kill their host cell after a certain amount of time.

No, I meant WHAT cells are taken over depend on the type of virus. Meaning: Viruses are usually picky about what cells they cellnap.

I guess I wrote it in a way I could understand, but re-reading it objectively, my sentence made no sense. I apologize.

 

[Siddhartha]

Originally posted by: Nocturnal
Like this new form of pneumonia... how did it become such a new and stronger form of an already existing disease?

Pin point mutattion
genetic recombination
Viruses(?)
Sexual reproduction
environmental selection

 

[sandorski]

Anti-biotics directly attack bacterial infections, killing the bacteria.

Anti-viral drugs don't attack viruses directly(this certainly was true, don't know if it is completely true for all anti-viral drugs these days), they bolster the natural human immune system. Innoculations against Small Pox, Hep A/B, and other Viral diseases work by triggering the Anti-bodies within the innoculated person to attack a weakened virus. By doing this, the Anti-bodies "learn" to recognize a certain Virus, thus the next time the Virus enters the body, it is acted upon quickly. If the Anti-bodies do not "know" a Virus, the Virus will infect the body with no resistance.

I'm not a medicaly trained professional, the above is just my educated understanding of the situation. 🙂