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The recent news about a new supermassive virus being discovered got me thinking about how we define viruses as non-living organisms whilst they are bigger than bacteria, and much more complex than we first gave them credit for.

What biological differences between viruses and cellular organisms have made viruses be deemed non-living?

James
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    You might be interested by this [http://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/1842/how-did-viruses-come-to-be] post as well. It concerns the origin of viruses. – Remi.b Jul 29 '13 at 13:30

7 Answers7

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If this is a topic that really interests you, I'd suggest searching for papers/reviews/opinions written by Didier Raoult. Raoult is one of the original discoverers of the massive Mimivirus and his work will lead you to some truly fascinating discussions that I couldn't hope to reproduce here.

The main argument for why viruses aren't living is basically what has been said already. Viruses are obligate parasites, and while plenty of parasites are indeed living what sets viruses apart is that they always rely on the host for the machinery with which to replicate. A parasitic worm may need the host to survive, using the host as a source for energy, but the worm produces and synthesizes its own proteins using its own ribosomes and associated complexes.

That's basically what it boils down to. No ribosomes? Not living. One advantage of this definition, for example, is that it is a positive selection (everyone "alive" has got ribosomes) which eliminates things like mitochondria that are sort of near the boundary of other definitions. There are examples on either side of something that breaks every other rule but not this one. Another common rule is metabolism and while that suffices for most cases some living parasites have lost metabolic activity, relying on their host for energy.

However (and this is the really interesting part) even the ribosome definition is a bit shaky, especially as viruses have been found encoding things like their own tRNAs. Here are a few points to think about:

  • We have ribosome encoding organisms (REOs), so why can't we define viruses as capsid encoding organisms (CEOs)?
  • Comparing viruses to a living organism such as a human is absurd, given the massive differences in complexity. A virus, really, is just a vehicle or genetic material, and would be more rightly compared to a sperm cell. Is a sperm cell alive, or is it a package for genetic material that is capable of life once it has infected/fertilized another cell?
  • The really large DNA viruses often create cytoplasmic features called virus factories. These look an awful lot like a nucleus. What is a nucleus anyway? Maybe it's just a very successful DNA virus that never left.
  • Viruses can get viruses.

I'll wind down here, but suffice to say that while our current definition may have sufficed for a while, and still does, it is no longer quite solid. In particular, there is a theory alluded to above that eukaryotic life itself actually formed because of viruses. I can expand on this if you like, but here are some great sources:

Boyer, M., Yutin, N., Pagnier, I., et al. 2009. Giant Marseillevirus highlights the role of amoebae as a melting pot in emergence of chimeric microorganisms. PNAS. 106(51):21848-21853 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0911354106)

Claverie, JM. Viruses take center stage in cellular evolution. 2006. Genome Biology. 7:110. (http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/gb-2006-7-6-110)

Ogata, H., Ray, J., Toyoda, K., et al. 2011. Two new subfamilies of DNA mismatch repair proteins (MutS) specifically abundant in the marine environment. The ISME Journal. 5:1143-1151 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ismej.2010.210)

Raoult, D. and Forterre, P. 2008. Redefining viruses: lessons from Mimivirus. Nature Reviews Microbiology. 6:315-319. (http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nrmicro1858)

Scola, B., Desnues, C., Pagnier, I., et al. The virophage as a unique parasite of the giant mimivirus. 2008. Nature. 455:100-104 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature07218)

Amory
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It is only a question of definition. You can set the boundaries between living things and not living things anywhere.

Some philosophers have argued that using a clear boundary between living and non-living things is not such a good solution. In nature, there would rather be a continuum from a stone to a bacteria.

It is true that in thinking of viruses such as Lausannevirus or Marseillevirus we might be willing to integrate them in the category of living things. These viruses are giant, and even can be parasitized by other viruses.

Viruses are made of proteins and contain nucleic acids (RNA or DNA). If you consider that they are alive, what would you say about viroids? A viroid is just a nucleic acid that is able to infect a host and cause the replication of itself. What about a prion? A prion is a protein that, roughly speaking, has the same consequences as that of a viroid.

I think (one should check the literature, I might be mistaken) that there is a species of parasitoid wasp that produces out of its own genomes, viruses that reduce the host immune system in order to make the caterpillar a suitable habitat for the egg. Is this virus alive? Isn't it just a toxin of the wasp?

I guess one reason for considering viruses as non-living is that we do not know how to branch them in the tree of life! Some might argue by the way that viruses would not at all form a monophyletic group.

There are several people tackling the question of "what is alive". Unfortunately, the best book I know on the subject comes from the French literature; it is Comment définir la vie? by Bersini and Reisse. In this field, the most popular authors are Varella and Maturana. Again, if I'm not mistaken, the definitions of life are quite different among philosophers, people having an interest in the origin of life, and people seeking a definition suitable for extra-terrestrial life.

cell0
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Remi.b
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  • There is a nice discussions along these lines also at the very beginning of the very nice essay by Jacques Monod "Le hasard et la nécessité", where he speaks about distinguishing "natural" (living) objects from human artefacts. – nico Jul 27 '13 at 23:33
  • only a question of "definition" ? not seems so. Its' a question whose answer we don't know... so we try to guess it in various ways. No guess could be considered as correct. – Always Confused Aug 07 '16 at 16:56
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    The indirect question is basically "what is 'life'?". In other words it is a question of the definition of 'life'. Now, sometimes there is a natural category that fits well our intuition and sometimes there is not. I would argue there is not for 'life' but this, I agree is a question open to debate (mainly in philosophy). However, it changes nothing to the fact that the question is about the definition of life. The term 'life' did not exist before humans and is here to be discovered. It is obviously a human choice to offer a sense to a term. – Remi.b Aug 07 '16 at 17:19
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I agree with the answers already given, these are the reasons that viruses are not considered alive. I want to point out though that this isn't an area you find 100% agreement on; there is a decent subset of biologists who do consider viruses alive. I would say - completely on the basis of personal observation - that virologists themselves are the group most likely to claim that viruses are alive.

This paper and this article from the Scientific American have some coverage of the debate if you want to read more.

Jack Aidley
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There are quite some different definitions of being "alive", but a common one includes the need to have responsiveness, growth, metabolism, energy transformation, and reproduction (found from the Encyclopedia Britannica). Viruses depend on host cells to do all this, so seen alone as a virus outside a host cell, they are not alive.

There's another short, but to the point blog entry about this.

skymningen
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    A neat answer, but I'm not satisfied. There are lots of parasites (and symbiotes) that rely on the host for biological processes, so I'm not sure if this covers such a niche point of taxonomy. I also disagree with that blog post about "passive" chemical reactions. In that case we are all none living as all our cells just passively carry out reactions with one another. – James Jul 26 '13 at 06:49
  • But the parasites, symbionts and multicellular organisms do reproduce and act (not only re-act). As I said, there are different definitions of life. But most of them agree, that to be called alive an organism has to at least fit one of the criteria (some definitions also include more criteria to choose from, for example when I was at school, movement was in the books.). Viruses fit none, but parasites do, as far as I am aware. And as far as science is aware. "Life" is a critical point, it is hard to define both scientifically and philosophically. – skymningen Jul 26 '13 at 07:30
  • @GoodGravy, most reactions in living organisms are active, in that they are specifically regulated by enzymes. Reactions related to virus replication are not, or they take advantage of the enzymes of the host cell. –  Jul 26 '13 at 10:17
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    @BrandonInvergo, that's not really true. Many viruses encode proteins that regulate viral replication. In fact that is a major part of the replication cycle for many viruses, determining the early/late or lytic/lysogenic activity during infection. Many other viral proteins are enzymes that specifically cleave or modify both viral and host proteins. Viruses often play a very active role in their own replication. – Amory Jul 27 '13 at 00:18
  • Interesting. I stand corrected! –  Jul 27 '13 at 08:58
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Despite great answers from Amory and Remi.b, I want to emphasize this: there is continual debate about the definition of life because "life" is not something that exists in the real world.

People seek a definition of life that satisfies an intuitive notion of what alive should mean. They feel that, say, intracellular parasites should be considered alive, but (say) only if they have an enclosing membrane, like Rickettsia, and not if they are just a virus, or just an RNA molecule like a viroid.

While people have a built-in intuition that, for example, reliably categorizes a tiger as alive and a rock as not alive, that intuition can't be precisely bounded by a definition such that everyone is satisfied by the boundary. There are arrangements of matter in the physical world that fall outside the clear region of the intuitive concept of life, and this leads to continual, unresolvable, argument on what a precise definition of life should be, and what it should include.

mgkrebbs
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    Concept of life is difficult, but not "unreal" or "false". – Always Confused Aug 07 '16 at 16:49
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    @AlwaysConfused, my point is that the definitional controversy about "life" is only a controversy about how to define a word, and not a controversy about the characteristics of the actual arrangements of physical entities and how they interact. There is no controversy that both viruses and Rickettsia are "replicators" (that is, things that replicate themselves in suitable environments), nor that viruses do not have a lipid membrane but Rickettsia do. The "life" controversy is just one of definition: "Include viruses." "No, don't." "Yes, do!" "No, don't!" ... – mgkrebbs Aug 07 '16 at 17:12
  • I didn't commented about defining virus as living or nonliving. I commented on your statement ""life" is not something that exists in the real world." Life, and its main-characteristic, consciousness not at all so simple. If someone enters a sword in your body, it is true you shout due to chemical reactions in form of neurological computation, it is also true you shout of "pain". Science can fairly explain that computation, but not pain, yet. But that doesn't make that pain unreal or false. it is quite unclear like numbers, shapes, sets etc. but it is never unreal. – Always Confused Aug 07 '16 at 17:36
  • In strict logic, someone canNot prove (yet) a given-other organism whether contains life (and consciousness) or not. We can just "guess" from the similarities (which you've called "intuitive notion"). If you are telling a piece of brick has no life (and no consciousness), and a deer have life (and consciousness), you're making a "guess" by watching the similarities like cell-membrane, cytoplasm, DNA, respiration etc. – Always Confused Aug 07 '16 at 18:02
  • @AlwaysConfused You might want to further your understanding of the question in play on Philosophy.SE as you seem to have issue in philosophy of logic and philosophy of knowledge. – Remi.b Aug 07 '16 at 21:49
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In addition to the good answers given here, I would like to propose a more intuitive argument against viruses being alive.

Viruses are, at one point of their "life", simply a piece of DNA (or RNA). Would you consider a piece of DNA to be alive? If so, then are transposons alive? Are chromosomes alive? How about synthesizing a piece of DNA - is that creating life? The answer will probably be "no" for most people.

Bitwise
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    One could argue that that is true for any cell... – nico Jul 26 '13 at 23:50
  • @nico sorry I didn't understand - how is a cell a piece of DNA/RNA? – Bitwise Jul 27 '13 at 00:22
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    at some point a cell was just a piece of DNA, before its mother cell split in two... Really the important point is that the virus is not able to replicate itself without the "help" of some other cell – nico Jul 27 '13 at 07:45
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    @nico: I disagree: a cell is never simply a piece of DNA, it always has membranes, organelles, proteins, etc. The division of mother->daughter is not the creation of a novel cell de novo from DNA but rather a process of growth followed by division. Even DNA replication is semiconservative - both copies are one part original, one part newly synthesized so neither can really claim to be more original than the other. – Jack Aidley Jul 27 '13 at 09:09
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    @JackAidley: dsRNA viruses also have semiconservative replication so that doesn't really apply... I am just saying that your answer does not give an explication because you need to define what "life" is. You cannot just say "A virus is not alive because DNA is not alive", as that just begs the question "why is DNA not alive?". – nico Jul 27 '13 at 11:19
  • @nico that is why I wrote "the answer will be no for most people", i.e. under most definitions of life. I do not know of any robust definition of life that considers a piece of DNA to be alive. Also I completely agree with Jack - a cell is never a piece of DNA, under any possible definition. – Bitwise Jul 27 '13 at 17:52
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    @nico: You said that a cell is a some point just DNA. This is false; it is never just DNA. – Jack Aidley Jul 27 '13 at 18:10
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    @JackAidley: and why would that be? It really depends on definitions, which are not given here. When the DNA replicates is the newly formed DNA already part of the new cell? Or it is part of the mother cell? Is the new cell "coming to life" only after division? You cannot just skip through those (and many other) points when defining whether a virus is alive. Otherwise you are just saying that a virus is not alive because it is not alive. Not very useful definition... – nico Jul 27 '13 at 18:52
  • @nico a cell has a relatively clear definition and it must have its own membrane. A cell with double the DNA is not 2 cells, it is one cell with double the DNA. There is a point at which the cell divides and the membranes are separated - that is when it becomes a separate entity. – Bitwise Jul 27 '13 at 21:25
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    Perfect, then the point of the virus being a DNA at some point is just non existent. A virus without capside is not a virus. A virus starts existing as a separate entity the moment it assembles its DNA/RNA into a capside, before it is not a virus. And that does not give us any clue on whether it is alive or not. – nico Jul 27 '13 at 23:31
  • @nico actually you are mistaken. It is not true that the virus exists only when it is assembled into a capsid. The correct name is virus at all stages (you can check the definition). When it is in a capsid it is called a virion. – Bitwise Jul 28 '13 at 01:11
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    @Bitwise: I know (I may have passed my virology class a while ago but I still remember this :P), but a virion is not a virus. It is a virion. And whatever the name you call it if you do not exactly define what life is you cannot state something is alive or not. Look at Amory's answer for a great deal of good refs – nico Jul 28 '13 at 08:37
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Good question; science yet don't know anything about "What is Life".

Yes. Everything about life we discuss (whatever by a Newton, Descartes or Schrodinger), it is in a level of Sci-fi, or hardly alchemy. Anyone of us don't know actually what is it.

The best characteristic of life is, "we, the living-creatures, can sense . We have consciousness" .

But alas, anyone can judge its own consciousness. We can-not judge someone else or any-other object contains any consciousness or not. We can just guess other's consciousness from facial expressions (say cry) , behavior, polygraphs, physiological reactions (respiration, growth, ageing etc... ), complication, informational-content, reproduction, genetic-code and such. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evQsOFQju08 , Is Your Red The Same as My Red? by Vsauce)

(however a living object can lose consciousness for a while such as when we're chloroformed).

In the same-way, we just guess presence of life in other objects from the complication, chemical structure (carbohydrate, proteins, lipid, DNA etc), metabolic reaction etc. and same evolutionary origin . same to us. In strict-logic we can't tell a lovely flying bird contains life and is conscious that an alien-robot is nonliving, lacking consciousness. We can guess, not prove, yet.

In the same logic, all virus, viroids and prions (the organisms of "border zone") (including biggest viruses) could be (and often is) compared with living-organisms (like we're), due to their similar chemical structure, genetic codes, information content, reaction etc. with us, as-well plausibly same origin with us.

There exist too, causes to consider all virus, viroids and prions (including biggest ones). I can call you alive. I can call your one organ (say hand) alive, could call a cell alive. But what we could call 1 protein-molecule? Just like a concrete-mixing machine (known to be nonliving), the protein-molecule is similarly made up of atoms... and nothing else. There is no evidence for "vital-forces" also... the protein molecule operates its works just with electromagnetic forces, thermal-collisions etc. There is no "sign" of life . In the same-way, a virus, viroid or a prion is just a lump of molecule. And for a big virus? a small hut (nonliving) : big house :: small virus : big virus. A big virus would be similar to a big bottle of nucleic acid.

Any more-discussion would be completely opinion-based, but in my-opinion it is better to consider these borderline-organisms as alive, due to more valid-logic such as

  1. They're similar with us in chemical structure, genetic code bla bla bla ...

  2. They are plausibly same in origin with us.

  3. Inert structures, like plant-seeds if contain life, then in same logic we can imagine life in virions etc.

  4. We found different level of parasitism in living organisms, such as ATP-parasites (I forgot example and can't find right now), and consider them as alive. So why we'll not consider a "protoplasm-parasite" a living-organism?

Always Confused
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  • Is there anything unclear or wrong? – Always Confused Aug 07 '16 at 18:22
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    Pretty much nobody limit the concept of life to the one of consciousness. While the term consciousness as no single definition everyone agrees on, using most people's definition of consciousness would exclude 99.9999% of the creatures that we generally consider being alive. The use of bla bla bla is in between inaccurate and childish ("etc..." would be equally inaccurate but at least sounds appropriate). You include two citations without indicating the source. – Remi.b Aug 07 '16 at 19:09
  • 99.9999% of alive creatures not considered conscious? such as an amoeba or a tree ? That would be again a guess that could be true or false. However, all life forms respond to different stresses and stimuli quite like human-being, though in different manners. that could be guessed as an external sign of consciousness? – Always Confused Aug 07 '16 at 19:20
  • @Remi.b 'Nobody limit the concept of life to the one of consciousness'? In some places I've read Rene Descartes did that. – Always Confused Oct 02 '16 at 16:56
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    If I understand the answer, you're trying to say that living things should have sensation. If that is the case, then why do we consider viruses non-living, and bacteria living? Both have essentially the same limitations on sensation in that they interact biochemically with their environment and respond. I think you misunderstood my vague question. I was looking for a clear-cut answer as to why biologists don't generally include viruses among the various trees of life. I'm not convinced there is a philosophical answer. – James Dec 19 '16 at 04:36
  • @James "I think you misunderstood my vague question". I understood the question as "What could be the causes for considering viruses as nonliving (even after when bigger size and complex forms found)?". "Both have essentially the same limitations on sensation".. again i remind i did not told about nerve-networks, i told about the entity 'sense' like 'red' or 'green' or 'sour' etc. We may describe every details of change in molecular orbital, but we don't know what are these "red" or "green" etc senses; and we can't tell from observation that an object in front of us have sense or not. – Always Confused Dec 19 '16 at 19:17
  • To answer about whether something do have life or not, we must have have to know "what life is". but yet we don't know it proper way except some observable signs like metabolism, self-sustenance. Understanding about life will remain incomplete until and unless we would be able to decipher the 'nature' of consciousness (I did not meant it could never be known or it could not be analyzed in scientific way). I just meant since we don't have yet that understanding; trial to 'confirming' an object's category as living or non-living; would be an illogical effort. That is all I tried to say. – Always Confused Dec 19 '16 at 19:32
  • Bacteria do have consciousness or not? Logically it is impossible to tell since anyone can observe only own's consciousness so we cannot tell does a bacteria feels anything. But maybe they feels something, we could 'guess' because of these similarities- they respond to their environmental changes (Some even show motions (flagellary/jerky) on environmental stimuli); probable-same origin with us; and ocurrence of complex metabolism. – Always Confused Dec 19 '16 at 19:44
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    I think you might be going too far down the existential line! See this video to get an overview of why "life" is a tricky thing to define from that point of view, and why viruses complicate that. It basically just generates more questions! If you enjoy the more practical side of the philosophical end of the topic of defining life, then you must read this 2002 essay by Koshland in Science. – James Dec 20 '16 at 03:27
  • @James both links good articles, but bypasses consciousness. – Always Confused Jan 07 '17 at 13:01