70. Is Ebola a DNA or RNA virus? Why is this a meaningful way to distinguish viruses?

Ebola is an RNA virus. This distinction was a necessity because Ebola was believed to be not only the oldest coding mechanism for life, but the most primitive as well.

EBOV carries a negative-sense RNA genome in virions that are cylindrical/tubular, and contain viral envelope, matrix, and nucleocapsid components. The overall cylinders are generally approximately 80 nm in diameter, and having a virally encoded glycoprotein (GP) projecting as 7-10 nm long spikes from its lipid bilayer surface. The cylinders are of variable length, typically 800 nm, but sometimes up to 1000 nm long. The outer viral envelope of the virion is derived by budding from domains of host cell membrane into which the GP spikes have been inserted during their biosynthesis.[citation needed] Individual GP molecules appear with spacings of about 10 nm. it is sequenced by viral genome sequenicng.