Structural and Genomic Information Laboratory, CNRS-UPR 2589, Aix-Marseille University, Mediterranean Institute of Microbiology, Parc Scientifique de Luminy, Case 934, 13288 Marseille Cedex 9, France.
Trends Genet. 2010 Oct;26(10):431-7. doi: 10.1016/j.tig.2010.07.003. Epub 2010 Aug 7.
What is a virus? Are viruses alive? Should they be classified among microorganisms? One would expect these simple questions to have been settled a century after the discovery of the first viral disease. For years, modern virology successfully unravelled the huge diversity of viruses in terms of genetic material, replication mechanism, pathogenicity, host infection, and more recently particle structure, planet-wide distribution and ecological significance. Yet, little progress was made in understanding their evolutionary origin(s), as well as the fundamental nature of their relationship with the cellular world. Thanks to the recent studies on Mimivirus and other large DNA viruses, we are now entering a new era where the most basic concepts about viruses are revisited, including their true nature, how fundamentally different they are from cellular microorganisms, and how essential they might have been in the major innovations that punctuated the evolution of life.
病毒是什么？病毒是活的吗？它们应该被归类为微生物吗？人们可能会认为，在发现第一种病毒性疾病一个世纪之后，这些简单的问题就已经得到解决。多年来，现代病毒学在遗传物质、复制机制、致病性、宿主感染等方面，以及最近在粒子结构、行星分布和生态意义方面，成功地揭示了病毒的巨大多样性。然而，在理解它们的进化起源以及它们与细胞世界的基本关系方面，几乎没有取得什么进展。由于最近对 mimivirus 及其他大型 DNA 病毒的研究，我们现在正进入一个新时代，重新审视有关病毒的最基本概念，包括它们的真实本质、它们与细胞微生物的根本区别，以及它们在生命进化过程中的重大创新中可能具有的重要性。
