Need help with this writing assignment! Are viruses alive? The term ‘virus’ come
ID: 301530 • Letter: N
Question
Need help with this writing assignment!
Are viruses alive?
The term ‘virus’ comes from the Latin word for poisonous, virulentus. Initially, viruses were classified as living organisms, but over the last 100 years there has been considerable debate in the scientific community over whether viruses are indeed living organisms. Your essay post should be ~500 words in length and should utilize at least 3 references outside of your textbook. You may use any reference style you’d like as long as it is organized and one of the standard formats for scientific writing. For example, it is common to put a number in parentheses (1) or superscripted at the end of the sentences or paragraphs to which a specific reference was applied, and then to have a corresponding numerical list of references at the end of the essay.
Your paper should touch on the following topics:
On what grounds are viruses considered non-living?
On what grounds are they considered living?
After interpreting the evidence, what is your position on the question, “Are viruses alive?”
Explanation / Answer
Viruses are small infectious agent that replicates inside a living or host cell. The microbe infects all types of life forms such as microbes to humans, animals to plants. Viruses are classified based on the morphological characteristics, nucleic acid content (DNA or RNA), replication properties, host range in which they attach and mode of transmission (1). There are number of reasons to exclude a virus from a living thing such as they a) lack the ability to reproduce independently undergo multiplication by lytic and lysogenic pathways, b) they are not stable and not made-up of cells, c) no cytoplasm or cell organelles, d) no metabolism activities observed, e) they are inert until find a living host to become active, f) they do not respire and g) they produce no waste products (2). There are many viruses still need a classification which plays a major role in medical field. However these viruses have few common characteristics they are well adapted to the host and their structural characteristics, they have a capsid which is the head region containing the genetic material. The capsid is made of glycoproteins.
Virology is the study of viruses. This field basically considered about the cell culture that is replication of viruses in cell culture which is widely used in vaccine production. These cell cultures are extensively used in clinical application for isolation, detection and also to infect other organism. On the other hand viruses are also considered as living organism showing some unique features such as they contain proteins and the glycoproteins which is available with living organism. They also have genetic material (DNA or RNA) and mainly they cause disease to animals, plants and humans these important features resembles viruses as living organism. Still, it is a debate in the scientific world. Viruses are simply called as virions, which itself an infectious particle made of a protein. The infection transforms by ribosomes (ribocell) in to a virocell (virions) together called as ribocell, in which both ribocell and the virocell are considered to be a living organism of the virus. (3). Thus viruses are also named to be a living organism.
Based on the above facts and the studies conducted by the scientist I consider that viruses are non living organism, because living organism follow certain basic criteria such as reproduction, response to stimuli, involve themselves in metabolic pathways and excrete the waste products from the cells or body. All these above except with few key presences (having genetic information and proteins) this may not be considered as living organism. Though they have genetic materials and other essential proteins they need a living cell or host to attach themselves to become active and to propagate without which it is a inactive substance or a cell (evidence: lytic and lysogenic pathways). Therefore it is completely marked it is not a living organism.
References
1. Fields BN (ed): Virology. 3rd Ed. Lippincott-Raven Press, 1995.
2. Moreira D, López-García P. Ten reasons to exclude viruses from the tree of life. Nat Rev Microbiol. 2009 Apr;7(4):306-11.
3. Forterre P. [The great virus comeback].Biol Aujourdhui.2013;207(3) :153-68.