Herpesvirus


One of a family of viruses that contain DNA and that cause infections in humans (human herpesviruses) or animals. Herpesviruses are common and often live in the host’s tissue for years or even decades without causing symptoms.

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  • Herpetiform virus

    A virus with the characteristic shape and behavior of a virus in the herpes family. Not all members of the herpes virus family have been identified. Some herpetiform viruses may eventually be called herpes viruses, while others are merely similar. See herpes virus.

  • Hetero-

    Prefix meaning different, as in heteromorphism (something that is different in form) and heterozygous (possessing two different forms of a particular gene). The opposite of hetero- is homo-.

  • Hershey-Chase experiment

    An extraordinarily important experiment in 1952 that helped to convince the world that DNA was the genetic material. Alfred Hershey (1908-1997) and his assistant Martha Chase (1923-2003) at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory showed that the DNA, not the protein, of the phage virus contains the phage genes. After a phage particle attaches to a […]

  • Heterochromatin

    constituitive heterochromatin and facultative heterochromatin.

  • Heterochromatin, constitutive

    Heterochromatin that is fixed and irreversible. Regions of constitutive heterochromatin are located at very specific spots in the genome (on chromosomes 1, 9, 16 and the Y chromosome, the tiny short arms of chromosomes 13-15 and 21 and 22, and near the centromeres of chromosomes) and consists of DNA that contains many tandem (not inverted) […]


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