Cytophatic Effect

What is the meaning of cytophatic effect?

Any observable anatomical (morphological) and for physiological alteration in host cell following virus infection.

It’s attributed to the virus inhibiting some aspect of cell metablosim or alternatively stimulating host cell metabolism

What is the use of Cytophatic Effects?

Used is clinical virology laboratory to aid in identification of a virus isolate.

What is the example of Cytophatic Effect

There are  several example of cytophatic effect

-          Swelling / rounding of the infected cell

-          Fusion with adjacent cells to form a syncytia (polykaryotes)

-          Nuclear or cytoplasmic inclusion bodies

-          Shrinking

-          Detachment from surface

-          Altered shape

-          Lysis

-          Altered membrane permeability

-          Apoptosis.

-          Vacuolization, disorientation

One of the example of the cytophatic effect is nuclear or cytoplasmic inclusion bodies. What is your understanding about inclusion bodies?

Inclusion bodies are nuclear or cytoplasmic aggregates of stainable substances, usually proteins. They typically represent sites of viral multiplication in a bacterium or a eukaryotic cell and usually consist of viral capsid proteins.

What is the characterictis of inclusion bodies and give some example

The characterization of inclusion bodies is useful for identification of viruses infections.

Example               - Guarnien bodies – the inclusion in small pox

                                - Negri bodies – inclusions in Rabies.

What are the effects of these inclusion on the host cell?

There can aggregate around host cell organelles and disrupt cellular activity

For example :
        -     REO virus inclusion aggregate around spindle fibers which can disrupt mitosis in anaphase

-          Arena virus inclusion aggregate around host cell ribosomoes which can distrupt translation

-          Herpes Aggregate around chromatin which can distrupt replication and transcription.

What is syncytia?

a large cell-like structure filled with cytoplasm containing many nuclei.

What is the example of  syncytia.

The example of syncytia is measles virus, mumps virus, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and Para influenza