Doctors often use the polymerase chain reaction test to detect fragments of a virus gene in specimens from patients.
This is a significant finding, suggesting that a point mutation in a single virus gene has a major impact upon likely disease severity during an outbreak.
The squash also posed the risk that its virus genes or the coat proteins they produced might interact with other viruses to produce new diseases.
Two other virus genes perform this task with terrible precision.
In each plant is a virus gene that produces a protein to protect cucumbers from disease in much the way polio vaccinations protect people.
The fruits produced would then carry seeds with the engineered virus gene.
In addition, Dr. Gonsalves said there appeared to be no risk to humans from eating the protein produced by the virus gene in the papaya.
A cold virus gene and a breakaway human chromosomal gene agree with one another in 'wanting' their host to sneeze.
Still other genes found in ducks are virus genes, able to spread without making more ducks.
These DNA sequences are the remnants of ancient virus genes and genomes that ancestrally 'invaded' the host germline.