Coronavirus life cycle: How is the virus genetic information copied and translated into new virus?
Channel: Biology Pictures
Date: 2020-03-29

Here’s an very simplified, animation of the coronavirus life cycle including some of the molecular biology. This is a creative commons resource. 

For a pdf summary of the video, go to:

https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/coronavirus-life-cycle-youtube-video-with-pdf-summary-12277543

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For pdfs of this and other biology visual summaries see:

https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/biology-visual-summaries-with-video-link-12292521

For a further simplification of the life cycle, see my other video:

https://youtu.be/SlAIc_uE3cw

For a playlist of videos relevant to coronavirus biology see:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUskznEKM8Yo6RryplG-kA4LvPdHpgzqG

for more of my biology videos, see:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdpk1x4DTs8kvMpjvy-X2uw

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Much detail is missing here. For example there are many more viral proteins than those shown. I simplified it to put across the overall idea of how this virus uses the human cell’s own machinery to do its work for it. There are many more detailed descriptions available. This is a particularly nice one: 

https://youtu.be/PWzbArPgo-o

The genetic information is carried by RNA. This is very similar to DNA, though RNA is quite often single stranded and does not have the famous helical structure described by Watson, Crick and Franklin. See my other video for quick explanation of the difference between DNA and RNA 

https://youtu.be/oZ4q2YJfRck

For a detailed review and more information on RNA polymerase (RdRP) as a potential drug target, see:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780128154229000103

For a recent paper on the binding of the virus spike (S) protein to the host cell receptor ACE2, see:

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/367/6483/1260

12th June 2020 update:
Recent evidence also suggests a role for Neuropilin-1 in cell invasion:

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.07.137802v2