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TRANSPOSON VIRIONS. “Unexpectedly, we have recently found that the majority of the Polintons encode two proteins homologous to the typical capsid proteins of other viruses, strongly suggesting that, at least under some conditions, these transposons actually produce virions that could infect new hosts.” http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nyas.12728/full View in LinkedIn

TRIALS ON ROYALTY. “Finally, on April 17, 1722, Maitland successfully treated the two daughters of the Princess of Wales. Not surprisingly, the procedure gained general acceptance after this last success.” https://lnkd.in/eQfnZZv View in LinkedIn

“TRANSPOSABLE ELEMENTS, also known as "jumping genes," are DNA sequences that move from one location on the genome to another...roughly half of the human genome is made up of transposons...most of the transposon sequences in the human genome are silent...transposons can drive the evolution of genomes by facilitating the translocation of genomic sequences, the shuffling of exons, and the repair of double-stranded breaks. Insertions and transposition can also alter gene regulatory regions and phenotypes.” https://lnkd.in/e_F3_XW View in LinkedIn

TRIALS ON ORPHAN CHILDREN. “All prisoners survived the experiment, and those exposed to smallpox later proved to be immune. In the months following this very first trial, Maitland repeated the experiment on orphaned children, again with success.” https://lnkd.in/eQfnZZv View in LinkedIn

RECLASSIFICATION. “This argument leads to the assumption that viruses are living, according to the classical definition of living organisms as cellular organisms. Raoult and Forterre have therefore proposed that the living world should be divided into two major groups of organisms, those that encode ribosomes (archaea, bacteria and eukarya), and capsid-encoding organisms (the viruses).” https://lnkd.in/eDXduUb View in LinkedIn

UNCONTROLLED EXPERIMENT. “This experiment involved testing variolation on six prisoners, three men and three women, in Newgate jail in 1721, and the purpose of the test, at first, was solely to determine the safety of the practice of variolation. This experiment, performed of course with no control group, offered the six prisoners their full freedom on the sole condition that they submit to the experiment of variolation.” http://www.bioethicscourse.info/jotsite/jot-chp2.html View in LinkedIn

EYE OF THE BEHOLDER. “Those who consider the virus to be the infected cell also believe that viruses are alive.” https://lnkd.in/eDXduUb View in LinkedIn

ON VIRIONS AND VIRUSES. “According to Bandea’s hypothesis, the infected cell is the virus, while the virus particles are ‘spores’ or reproductive forms. His theory was largely ignored until the discovery of the giant mimivirus, which replicates its DNA genome and produces new virions in the cytoplasm within complex viral ‘factories’. Claverie suggested that the viral factory corresponds to the organism, whereas the virion is used to spread from cell to cell. He wrote that “to confuse the virion with the virus would be the same as to confuse a sperm cell with a human being”. https://lnkd.in/eDXduUb View in LinkedIn

ALTERNATIVE STRATEGY. “Adenoviruses followed the opposite evolutionary route, losing the integrase gene together with the integration/transposition ability and thereby committing to a strictly viral reproduction strategy.” https://lnkd.in/eU7uHHB View in LinkedIn

EXTREME STREAMLINING. “Some polintoviruses have given up the virus lifestyle altogether by losing the genes involved in virion formation and becoming pure transposons (Polintons). A striking example is the extraordinary expansion of capsid-less Polintons in Trichomonas vaginalis, where they constitute up to 30% of the host genome.” http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nyas.12728/full View in LinkedIn