The envelope of enveloped viruses is obtained through which process?

Enveloped viruses acquire their envelopes primarily through a process known as viral budding or exocytosis. This occurs when the viral particles push through the host cell membrane. As they exit the cell, they take a portion of the host cell's lipid bilayer with them, which forms the viral envelope. This envelope contains viral proteins that are crucial for infection and the virus's ability to evade the host's immune responses.

In contrast, cell division, binary fission, and mitosis are cellular processes related to the replication and division of cells, not the mechanism of virus assembly or exit. Thus, they do not relate to how enveloped viruses obtain their envelopes. Understanding the mechanism of viral budding helps explain why enveloped viruses have certain structural characteristics and how they differ from non-enveloped viruses, which do not have an envelope and exit cells through cell lysis.