Viral shedding

Viral shedding is the expulsion and release of virus progeny following successful reproduction during a host cell infection.

When beginning the budding process, the viral nucleocapsid cooperates with a certain region of the host cell membrane.

In order to successfully bud from the host cell, the nucleocapsid of the virus must form a connection with the cytoplasmic tails of envelope proteins.

However, it has been demonstrated that viruses infecting prokaryotes of the domain Archaea also employ this mechanism of virion release.

However, apoptosis does not necessarily result in the cell simply popping open and spilling its contents into the extracellular space.

Virus forcing cell to undergo apoptosis to infect macrophages
Virus leaving via exocytosis