Viruses Go Lytic or Latent, Based on Viral DNA Mechanics

When viral DNA is more “liquidy,” it is more easily injected into host cells—so easily, in fact, that multiple virus-carrying capsids may squeeze their DNA payloads into a host cell simultaneously. This finding is significant because it helps explain why some viral infections follow a lytic course, in which the host cell is quickly killed, whereas some viral infections follow a latent course, in which the host cell’s genome incorporates viral DNA that often remains dorman