Do you think a virus is a living organism?

Question

Pleases do your homework on what technically constitutes life and wha a virus is composed of. There have been numerous debates in my Microbiology class.

Answer 1

The primary argument is that viruses are incapable of living outside of their host. Interestingly, this is true of many bacteria and some fungi as well. Most virologists will tell you that viruses are alive and meet all the important criteria of life:

There are 7 characteristics of life: homeostasis, organization, metabolism, growth, adaptation, response to stimuli, and reproduction.

Homeostasis - many bacteria don't maintain a stable internal environment, are they dead?

Organization - Viruses are organized, have you ever seen a crystal structure of a virion?

Metabolism - agreed, no

Growth - yes virus particles grow and mature in the host cell

adaptation (evolution) - very much yes

response to stimuli - Viruses respond to stimuli, just not the stimuli you think of naturally. Viruses modulate their reproduction and life cycles based on the "stimuli" in the host cell

Reproduction - Of course yes. Of course they reproduce and pass on their genes. And nearly all viruses encode their own replication proteins.

So the only characteristic that viruses fail to qualifiy as alive for is metabolism, and it could easily be argued that metabolism is the least important and most arbitrary characteristic of living organisms since viruses do a fine job of gathering energy from their environment (host cell). Some folks can't get over this arbitrary criteria so they refuse to give the idea any thought.

by the way, bacteria don't breathe or eat, plants don't move

Answer 2

We have learned that a living organism is such that is born, multiply and die. I think you can't really say a virus is alive, all living forms we know reproduce themselfs, and "eat" (they transform materia in order to get energy). We know viruses multiply, but they don't do it on their own. They have DNA and proteins, some of them only have RNA and proteins. What they do is they pour their genetic material in the host cell, and the host cell starts multiplying their DNA/RNA, and producing the proteins they need. So they don't really multiply. I like to think viruses are huge clusters of biomolecular compunds, they come near the cell (somehow gets inside, there are many ways) and the cell starts using this material as it was it's own and dies, when filled with the clusters it has formed inside itself. I think this is the key concept. When arsenic gets inside de cell, the cell use it as it was phosphate and dies. The virus does the same thing, the cell "gets confused" and transcripts a foreign DNA. Virus dont do anything at all. They are a protected genetic code (that is not life itself) that is transcripted by a cell. They could be thought as pre-living forms, but not living organisms. This are my thoughts, I hope I was clear enough.

Answer 3

All Life we know on earth is generally defined by underlying Biological Themes and its not clear whether viruses support Universality because they are not cell based and can only divide in a host cell and its not clear whether they support Evolution have a common ancestor with other life forms, or Homestasis provide their own homestasis outside a host cell:

Living organisms are:

1. Universal-
composed of cells (cyotic)
holds some genetic, evolutionary material such as DNA and RNA-based sequences
support cellular processes, such as asexual division

2. Evolutionary-
Evolve from a common ancestor

3. Diversity-
can be classified within a taxonomy as a species

4. Homestasis-
can regulate internal environment and processes within an environment

5. Interactive-
interacts with external environment

Answer 4

A virus is little more than a strand of RNA. It is not classified as a living thing because it does not do some of the basic things that all living things do. A virus does not breathe, eat, move, grow, or even die. Without a host they don't do anything at all-they are just an RNA particle. Once it is in a host cell (your cell, for example) the cell becomes confused and starts replicating the viral RNA instead of its own, which is how the virus reproduces, so the virus cant even reproduce itself.

Answer 5

By itself, a virus is a lifeless particle that cannot reproduce. But inside a living cell, a virus becomes an active organism that can multiply hundreds of times.

Answer 6

No.
No metabolism. A virus does not synthesize the macromolecules of which it is composed.
No more debates.

Answer 7

No.
For the sake of argument I define "living organism" as containing the biochemical machinery within itself to carry out a full cycle of metabolism, catabolism, energy regulation, and reproduction.

Viruses are basically bits of genetic material and associated structural proteins that use the biochemical machinery of true living organisms to carry out these functions for the purpose of their procreation.

Answer 8

Of course Virus is a living organism and it is classified in the group of simple organisms which consist of Bacteria,Virus,Algae,Protozoa and fungi.

Answer 9

you can't say in a certain way that what virus is but there is a theory that say genome of virus is a part of host's genome which they implicate them

Answer 10

I wouldn't say that it's living as defined by most biological standards.