Replication of Viruses

In general terms, virus replication involves three broad stages which are present in all viruses: initiation of infection, replication and expression of the genome, and the release of mature virions from the infected cell. At a more detailed level, virus replication can be broken down into the stages of attachment, entry, uncoating, transcription and genome replication, assembly, maturation, and release. However, there are many subtle differences between the replication processes of different viruses, imposed by the biology of the host cell and the nature of the virus genome.