Month: September 2022

NO CONSERVED GENES. “Viruses and related genetic elements do not share a single common ancestor: indeed, there are no genes that would be conserved in all or even in the majority of viral genomes.” http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nyas.12728/full View in LinkedIn

TANGLED WEB. “However, viruses and other selfish genetic elements form a complex network of evolutionary relationships in which genomes are linked through different sets of shared genes.” https://lnkd.in/eU7uHHB View in LinkedIn

GENE SWAPS. “This evolutionary network apparently emerged owing to extensive gene exchange, often between widely different elements, as well as parallel acquisition of homologous genes from the hosts.” https://lnkd.in/eU7uHHB View in LinkedIn

BORROWED GENES. “Viruses with large genomes contain numerous genes acquired from the hosts at different stages of evolution.” https://lnkd.in/eU7uHHB View in LinkedIn

HALLMARK GENES. “However, a small group of virus hallmark genes that encode key proteins involved in genome replication and virion formation, most notably capsid proteins, are represented in a broad variety of elements, comprising a substantial fraction of the edges in the evolutionary network. Virus hallmark genes do not have obvious ancestors in cellular life forms, suggesting that some types of virus-like elements evolved at a precellular stage of the evolution of life.” https://lnkd.in/eU7uHHB View in LinkedIn

NO NAMES. Viruses are not given Latin names like other living organisms (polio virus, rabies virus), except that Virus is Latin for poison. https://lnkd.in/eqw9nkU View in LinkedIn

BORDERLINE. “Viruses have no chemical processes of their own.” https://lnkd.in/eHNQAPJ View in LinkedIn

EXTRATERRESTIAL. “Viruses can’t metabolize (break down) food to release energy (carry out respiration) or grow. The only thing that viruses can do is replicate (copy themselves), but to do that they need the help of a living cell.” Extreme outsourcing and streamlining. https://lnkd.in/eFcy85g View in LinkedIn

REPLICONS. “Viruses do not reproduce by division, but are replicated by the self-assembly of preformed components. This, not size, differentiates them from cellular living organisms such as bacteria. A virus-infected cell is more like a car factory than a womb. Also, unlike living organisms, no virus has the means of generating its own energy – they are all energy pirates.” https://lnkd.in/eixJrrD View in LinkedIn

GENETIC DIFFERENCES. “The viromes (i.e., the compendia of all viruses and virus-like elements) of prokaryotes (archaea and bacteria) and eukaryotes are dramatically different.” http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nyas.12728/full View in LinkedIn