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Viral information
Biology & Philosophy ( IF 2.5 ) Pub Date : 2012-10-31 , DOI: 10.1007/s10539-012-9344-0
Forest Rohwer 1 , Katie Barott
Affiliation  

Viruses are major drivers of global biogeochemistry and the etiological agents of many diseases. They are also the winners in the game of life: there are more viruses on the planet than cellular organisms and they encode most of the genetic diversity on the planet. In fact, it is reasonable to view life as a viral incubator. Nevertheless, most ecological and evolutionary theories were developed, and continue to be developed, without considering the virosphere. This means these theories need to be to reinterpreted in light of viral knowledge or we need to develop new theory from the viral point-of-view. Here we briefly introduce our viral planet and then address a major outstanding question in biology: why is most of life viral? A key insight is that during an infection cycle the original virus is completely broken down and only the associated information is passed on to the next generation. This is different for cellular organisms, which must pass on some physical part of themselves from generation to generation. Based on this premise, it is proposed that the thermodynamic consequences of physical information (e.g., Landauer’s principle) are observed in natural viral populations. This link between physical and genetic information is then used to develop the Viral Information Hypothesis, which states that genetic information replicates itself to the detriment of system energy efficiency (i.e., is viral in nature). Finally, we show how viral information can be tested, and illustrate how this novel view can explain existing ecological and evolutionary theories from more fundamental principles.

中文翻译:

病毒信息

病毒是全球生物地球化学的主要驱动力,也是许多疾病的病原体。它们也是生命游戏的赢家:地球上的病毒比细胞生物多,它们编码了地球上的大部分遗传多样性。事实上,将生命视为病毒孵化器是合理的。尽管如此,大多数生态和进化理论都是在没有考虑到病毒圈的情况下发展起来的,而且还在继续发展。这意味着需要根据病毒知识重新解释这些理论,或者我们需要从病毒的角度开发新理论。在这里,我们简要介绍我们的病毒星球,然后解决生物学中的一个主要悬而未决的问题:为什么大部分生命都是病毒式的?一个关键的见解是,在感染周期中,原始病毒被完全分解,只有相关信息会传递给下一代。这对于细胞生物来说是不同的,它们必须代代相传自己的某些物理部分。基于这个前提,有人提议在自然病毒种群中观察到物理信息的热力学后果(例如,兰道尔原理)。然后使用物理和遗传信息之间的这种联系来发展病毒信息假说,该假说指出遗传信息会自我复制从而损害系统能源效率(即本质上是病毒)。最后,我们展示了如何测试病毒信息,
更新日期:2012-10-31
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