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Could life have sprung from viruses?; I'm thinking of writing a paper on it...
Topic Started: Dec 21 2016, 01:42 AM (389 Views)
zergthe
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Kleptoparasite
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So, for faeces and giggles, I'm thinking of writing a paper on whether or not life as we know it could have sprung from viruses. I will need to study these things profusely in order to even attempt to do this first, so if anyone has experience with bacteria and viruses, please help!

Now, it started as an idea: Could life's origins come from viruses? My first thought was, "Hey, life on Earth had to have started somehow, so how?" I started to think about it more. Because I knew we are made of CHNOPS (carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, sulfur), I wondered what the elemental makeup of viruses are. I don't know for sure, but I'm only guessing it's somewhat similar.

Another thing to add was our chemical makeup. Life as we know it is primarily made of DNA, whereas viruses are composed mostly of RNA. Because of this, we can Ben affected by viruses because they will join together; they are half of the double helix (again, this may need corrections). Only when the parasitic virus has a host it can join with they can reproduce effectively.

My last thought is there's just got to be a way to convert DNA into RNA, and vice versa. I have forgotten if this is possible, but I am fairly certain it is. So, with the right amount of sequencing, I think a virus could actually become a type of life form.

So, do you agree? Disagree? Thoughts? Questions? Answers? Add-ons? Debates? Anything?
Discuss below. Any and all help is greatly appreciated!
Edited by zergthe, Dec 21 2016, 01:42 AM.
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M4A2E4
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Not in the modern way that we think of viruses. Viruses, almost by definition, require other life forms in order to complete their own life processes.

The earliest forms of "life" may be things that we might confuse with viruses if we looked at them under a microscope, but they definitely weren't viruses in a functional sense.
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zergthe
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M4A2E4
 
Not in the modern way that we think of viruses. Viruses, almost by definition, require other life forms in order to complete their own life processes.

Right, but perhaps there was a part in time where it didn't absolutely depend on a host, much like our mitochondria, over time, became an essential part of our life, despite being it's very own organism.
M4A2E4
 
The earliest forms of "life" may be things that we might confuse with viruses if we looked at them under a microscope, but they definitely weren't viruses in a functional sense.

But my whole idea is if they can be confused as said viruses, perhaps they at some point didn't originate from them. Crossing my fingers it isn't just convergent evolution lol
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Ursus arctos
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I would read about the RNA World.
The section on viroids in particular.
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LionClaws
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Most models of life's origin at this point involve small self-replicating ribozymes (kinda like enzymes, but made out of RNA) in micelles made from fatty acids. These eventually diversified into a whole "RNA world," wherein a variety of ribozymes with different functions were present and horizontal gene transfer ran rampant. Eventually, ribozymes that sequestered amino acids evolved. Since ribozymes with amino acids incorporated into themselves could perform a wider variety of functions than the ordinary kind, this resulted in a second radical diversification of the gene pool (bear in mind that just about any cell could fuse with any other cell back then). Time went on, natural selection did its job, and eventually the old sequestration ribozymes evolved into elements of the transcription and translation system we all know and love today. At some time during this period, some enterprising protocells started using the more stable DNA for long-term storage of information, using RNA only for catalytic and messengerial purposes. Meanwhile, the "natural stock" of nucleic acids, amino acids, sugars, and lipids was rapidly being consumed. Protocells that could make such chemicals from whatever other chemicals happened to be floating around had a competitive edge. Step by step, metabolic pathways evolved into labrynthine complexity, at least compared to the modern versions (which often have intermediate products with very short lifespans, presumably historical pathways were "scaffolds" that could be taken down once the "arches" were completed). But one of the biggest changes was the production of the relatively stable cell membrane. At first, it was probably just a couple of phospholipids mixed in with the fatty acids, but as time went on, a variety of more complex membrane compositions evolved, many of which became more stable. Proteins associated with the cell membrane diversified simultaneously. More and more varieties cropped up, until at last there came to be a protocell with complete control over its membrane. By this point, it would be demeaning to continue referring to it as a protocell. It was just a cell. And, at the time, it was state-of-the-art: capable of segregating copies of genetic material, and dividing under its own power. The topology of its membrane was stable, it didn't just fuse with whatever it bumped into.

The arrival of true cellular life was far from good news for the entire protocell population, however, Many ribozymes had taken advantage of the promiscuous nature of protocellular gene exchange, encoding for nothing in particular, being propagated solely because the machinery of their hosts couldn't tell these freeloaders from productive genes. Whatever their micelles fused with, these parasites could take over. But now, with true cells on the scene, these parasitic ribozymes had to get tricky. Some were lucky enough to get "packaged with" the genes for a variety of membrane proteins. Over time, these parasites became viruses.

To say that life came from viruses would be inaccurate. It would be more accurate to say that both forms of organic self-replication "crystalized out of" a prior population of promiscuous protocells.
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