Do viruses die? If so, does that mean viruses are alive?

Question

If so, does that mean scientists created life in the absence of a natural template?

Documentation of the generation of infectious virus in the absence of natural template:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/297/5583/1016

http://www.nyas.org/ebriefreps/main.asp?intSubSectionID=553

http://www.foresight.org/nanodot/?p=1202

http://www.nature.com/msb/journal/v1/n1/full/msb4100028.html

About poliovirus:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poliovirus

So I guess a non-living thing can reproduce? Freaky! And science continues to evolve . .

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22kills+viruses%22&btnG=Search

The conclusions of a scientist who has studied viruses for 25 years:

http://www.hhmi.org/news/lai.html

For ADD people:

"Viruses do things that we don't expect. They adapt to the environment. They change themselves to survive. They can pick up pieces of cellular genes or incorporate their genes into the cell's genome. That means that evolution occurs all the time in viruses . . " -Michael Lai, University of Southern California School of Medicine.

Doesn't all life require something outside itself in order to reproduce? What life forms can reproduce without either air or water or food? How can you draw a distinction between these sustaining environments and the sustaining environment of a host organism?

" . . the scientists involved did not create life because viruses are not alive, but they created a viable new copy of the viruses RNA from the sequence stored on a computer. This is an advance in technology being reported not scientists making a viruses from a sequence of RNA they thought up themselves."

If you presuppose something isn't alive and then make a thing just like it, then of course you would presuppose the new thing wouldn't be alive.

Of course the scientists worked from a a pre-existing RNA sequence. What's the point of randomly fitting together RNA in hopes that you might get a new virsus when you already know a sequence that works?

Answer 1

You looks to me that by doing all this homework that you are in as good a position to answer this question as anyone else.
I still see this question dividing biologist everywhere. As your articles hopefully imply, we may have a solid answer soon.

Answer 2

I keep in mind discussing this in college Biology type. Viruses reveal most of the characteristics in many cases linked with existence yet no longer all of them. They reproduce (or extra aptly mirror), they're created from DNA, and that they evolve. on the different hand, they do no longer flow and that they've not have been given any metabolism. So that's style of like they're in between being alive and not alive.

Answer 3

Viruses are not alive because they cannot replicate themselves, but must infect other organisms and replicate within them (1).

Clarification: because virus cannot replicate they fail to meet the criteria of life set out in the generally accepted definition of life (1, 2). This is still debated.

When viruses are destroyed they should not be referred to as dying, but rather as being inactivated. For example viruses can be inactivated in a number of ways; heat will inactivate some viruses by denaturing the proteins they are made up of, UV light can irreparably damage viral DNA or RNA there by inactivating them and antibodies made by plasma cells in infected organisms can completely coat the viruses ('opsonise' them) inactivating them and allowing them to be removed by other cells in your body (5).

I think you may have slightly misinterpreted the first paper you refer to "Chemical Synthesis of Poliovirus cDNA: Generation of Infectious Virus in the Absence of Natural Template". There are two main types of virus DNA and RNA (1, 3, 4). In this case a team of scientists synthesised, from oligonucleotides made up of the basic nucleotides guanine, cytosine, thymine and adenine, a new copy of the Polio viruses cDNA from scratch based on the viruses known RNA sequence as it was recorded on a database. The "natural template" they refer to in this case would be the complete set of Polio virus RNA from which you could create copies within living cells.

In other words the scientists involved did not create life because viruses are not alive, but they created a viable new copy of the Polio virus's RNA from the sequence stored on a computer. This is an advance in technology being reported not scientists making a viruses from a sequence of RNA they thought up themselves.

To clarify: scientists created a viable copy of the viral RNA in the absence of a natural template, as stated in the paper you quote. Whether or not you think they recreated life depends on which side you take in the "are viruses alive or not debate", as I pointed out in the first and second paragraphs. What is certain is that they did not "create" the virus for the first time, because it already existed.

The important parts of the "are viruses alive or not" debate:
1. Organisation: virus are not organised into cells living organisms are.

2. Growth: living organisms grow, where as viruses are assembled by cells, viruses do not grow on there own.

3. Homeostasis: viruses do not regulate there internal environment, but do break down upon entering a cell.

4. Metabolism: viruses do not consume energy to maintain themselves living organisms do.

5. Response to stimuli: viruses interact with cell they infect, but they do not respond to most stimuli.

6. Adaptation: viruses are capable of evolving over time.

7. Reproduction: viruses cannot replicate without infecting other organisms.

To avoid the confusion created by previous answers: bacteria are unicellular living organisms that can be infected by viruses. These viruses are known as bacteriophage.

Answer 4

Viruses do not die. It is an inaccurate statement. A more accurate statement would be that they are unable to infect cells and proliferate. Viruses do not respond to stimuli which is one of the conditions necessary to meet the definition of "alive". Therefore if it is not alive, it can not die.

Answer 5

I don't think virus's die,,they can live indefinitely in a body.
virus's live in a grey area between living and non-living and
they depend on host cells that they infect to reproduce.
When found outside their host cell,virus's exist by making a capsule type membrane surrounding them..like for protection.
that's all I know about them.So,they don't die,they just lie dormant...for sometimes long time...sometimes not.

Answer 6

Viruses are both bacterial and viral and both are living organism. You can kill them both, although we haven't discovered the actual chemical or biological property yet that will do that to some of them. Have you ever watched one under a microscope. Its facinating.

Answer 7

NO VIRUS'S CAN NOT DIE THEY CAN BE TREATED AND TEMPORARILY AT A HOLT. AND THEY ARE NOT ALIVE