Читать книгу Principles of Virology - Jane Flint, S. Jane Flint - Страница 49

Viruses can be viewed as microbes that exist in two phases: an inanimate phase, the virion; and a multiplying phase in an infected cell. Some researchers have promoted the idea that viruses are bona fide living entities. According to this notion, inanimate virions may be viewed as “spores” that transform the infected cell into a novel type of organism (termed a virocell), dedicated to the production of new virions. The nature of viruses has long been a topic of intense discussion, stimulated most recently by the discovery of giant viruses such as the mimiviruses and Pandoraviruses, which encode more functions that previously ascribed to viral genomes.

Apart from attributing “life” to viruses, many scientists have succumbed to the temptation of ascribing various actions and motives when discussing them. While remarkably effective in enlivening a lecture or an article, anthropomorphic characterizations are inaccurate and also quite misleading. Infected cells and hosts respond in many ways after virus infection, but viruses, which are totally at the mercy of their environment, lack the capacity for intentional, goal-directed activity. Therefore, viruses cannot employ, ensure, synthesize, induce, display, destroy, deploy, depend, avoid, retain, evade, exploit, generate, etc.

As virologists can be very passionate about their subject, it is exceedingly difficult to purge such anthropomorphic terms from virology communications. Indeed, hours were spent doing so in the preparation of this textbook, though undoubtedly there remain examples in which actions are attributed to viruses. Should you find them, let us know!

Check out what the contemporary general public feels about this topic at http://www.virology.ws/are-viruses-alive/.

 Forterre P. 2016. To be or not to be alive: how recent discoveries challenge the traditional definitions of viruses and life. Stud Hist Philos Biol Biomed Sci 59:100–108.

 van Regenmortel MHV. 2016. The metaphor that viruses are living is alive and well, but it is no more than a metaphor. Stud Hist Philos Biol Biomed Sci 59:117–124.