They're also single-stranded, positive-sense ribonucleic acid, or RNA, viruses.

它们也是单链、正义核糖核酸（RNA）病毒。

" The coronavirus mutates just like any good RNA virus should, " added Mark Schleiss, a molecular genetics expert.

" 冠状病毒突变和其他任何正常的RNA病毒一样，" 马克·施莱希补充道，他是分子遗传学专家。

And RNA viruses can mutate much faster.

RNA 病毒的变异速度要快得多。

With RNA viruses, many of them stay in the cytoplasm where the viral RNA is used by the host's ribosomes to create viral RNA polymerase proteins.

对于RNA病毒，它们中的许多都待在细胞质中，病毒RNA在这里由宿主的核糖体合成病毒RNA聚合酶。

Coronaviruses store their genes on RNA. All viruses are either RNA viruses or DNA viruses.

冠状病毒将其基因存储在 RNA 上。所有病毒要么是RNA病毒，要么是DNA病毒。

This makes coronaviruses much more stable, with a slower mutation rate, than other RNA viruses.

这使得冠状病毒比其他 RNA 病毒更稳定，突变率更慢。

In general, RNA viruses don't have a proofreading mechanism, whereas DNA viruses do.

一般来说，RNA病毒没有校对机制，而D​​NA病毒有。

Now this virus is a single-stranded RNA virus, and it's also a negative sense, meaning it first has to be transcribed by RNA polymerase into a positive-sense mRNA strand.

麻疹病毒是一种单链RNA病毒，也就是负义链的病毒，这意味着它首先必须被RNA聚合酶转录成正义mRNA链（正义链与反义链互补）。

Coronaviruses have a few key differences from most RNA viruses.

冠状病毒与大多数RNA病毒有一些关键区别。

The coronavirus is an RNA virus, and those usually mutate fast.

冠状病毒是一种 RNA 病毒，通常变异速度很快。

RNA viruses tend to be smaller, with fewer genes, meaning they infect many hosts and replicate quickly in those hosts.

RNA 病毒往往更小，基因更少，这意味着它们会感染许多宿主并在这些宿主中快速复制。

So when an RNA virus replicates, it's much more likely to have mistakes called mutations.

因此，当 RNA 病毒复制时，它更有可能出现称为突变的错误。

This is true of the RNA viruses that caused the Ebola, Zika, and SARS epidemics, and the COVID-19 pandemic.

导致埃博拉、寨卡和 SARS 流行病以及 COVID-19 流行病的 RNA 病毒就是如此。

On the inside is the virus' RNA, and on the outside are lots and lots of hemagglutinin proteins.

里面是病毒的RNA，外面是很多很多的血凝素蛋白。

RNA polymerases are more likely to make copying errors than DNA polymerases and therefore often make mistakes during transcription, this is why mutations in RNA viruses occur more frequently than in DNA viruses.

RNA聚合酶在复制时比DNA聚合酶更容易产生错误，因此在转录过程中经常出错，也就是为什么RNA病毒的突变比DNA病毒发生得更频繁。