Month: September 2022

COLLABORATIVE MOLECULES. "Life arises when lineage-forming entities collaborate in metabolism." https://lnkd.in/e7VVjkg View in LinkedIn

FUNCTIONAL WHOLES. "By conceiving of metabolism as a collaborative process performed by functional wholes, which are associations of a variety of lineage-forming entities, we avoid the standard tension between reproduction and metabolism in discussions of life – a tension particularly evident in discussions of whether viruses are alive." https://lnkd.in/e7VVjkg View in LinkedIn

SPECTRUM. "Our perspective assumes no sharp distinction between life and non-life, and does not equate life exclusively with cellular or organismal status. We reach this conclusion through an analysis of the capabilities of a spectrum of biological entities, in which we include the pivotal case of viruses as well as prions, plasmids, organelles, intracellular and extracellular symbionts, unicellular and multicellular life-forms." https://lnkd.in/e7VVjkg View in LinkedIn

PROTEIN-BASED GENES. "The central oddity of prions is that they propagate autocatalytically in a protein-only form, without DNA involvement. For this reason, they are frequently referred to as protein-based genes." https://lnkd.in/e7VVjkg View in LinkedIn

PRIONS AS BENEFICIAL. "Prions can introduce useful genetic diversity. A new survey...found prions in 1/3 of yeast strains, and 40% of the traits they conferred were beneficial." https://lnkd.in/eT4cFFg View in LinkedIn

PROTECTIVE. "The non-pathogenic isoform of human prion proteins (the functions of which are still largely mysterious) is linked to the prevention of Alzheimer’s disease." https://lnkd.in/e7VVjkg View in LinkedIn

PRION AUTONOMY. "The usual criterion for classifying many of the entities of our continuum as non-living is autonomy. This emphasis on autonomy is problematic, however, because even paradigmatic biological individuals, such as large animals, are dependent on symbiotic associations with many other organisms. These composite individuals constitute the metabolic wholes on which selection acts." https://lnkd.in/e7VVjkg View in LinkedIn

PRION EVOLUTION. "Prions can develop large numbers of mutations at the protein level and, through natural selection, these mutations can eventually bring about such evolutionary adaptations as drug resistance, a phenomenon previously known to occur only in bacteria and viruses." https://lnkd.in/eR_TbTu View in LinkedIn

PROTEIN EVOLUTION WITHOUT DNA. "In viruses, mutation is linked to changes in nucleic acid sequence that leads to resistance. Now, this adaptability has moved one level down – to prions and protein folding – and it’s clear that you do not need nucleic acid for the process of evolution.” https://lnkd.in/eR_TbTu View in LinkedIn

ADAPTION AND EVOLUTION. "Prions may undergo rapid adaptation and evolution in cloned cells and upon crossing the species barrier." The most virulent prion forms are selected by evolutionary pressures. https://lnkd.in/eE_2Z_t View in LinkedIn