Herrero-Uribe Libia
Centro de Investigación en Enfermedades Tropicales, Facultad de Microbiologá, Universidad de Costa Rica, San José, Costa Rica.
Rev Biol Trop. 2011 Sep;59(3):993-8.
Viruses are known to be abundant, ubiquitous, and to play a very important role in the health and evolution of life organisms. However, most biologists have considered them as entities separate from the realm of life and acting merely as mechanical artifacts that can exchange genes between different organisms. This article reviews some definitions of life organisms to determine if viruses adjust to them, and additionally, considers new discoveries to challenge the present definition of viruses. Definitions of life organisms have been revised in order to validate how viruses fit into them. Viral factories are discussed since these mini-organelles are a good example of the complexity of viral infection, not as a mechanical usurpation of cell structures, but as a driving force leading to the reorganization and modification of cell structures by viral and cell enzymes. New discoveries such as the Mimivirus, its virophage and viruses that produce filamentous tails when outside of their host cell, have stimulated the scientific community to analyze the current definition of viruses. One way to be free for innovation is to learn from life, without rigid mental structures or tied to the past, in order to understand in an integrated view the new discoveries that will be unfolded in future research. Life processes must be looked from the complexity and trans-disciplinarity perspective that includes and accepts the temporality of the active processes of life organisms, their interdependency and interrelation among them and their environment. New insights must be found to redefine life organisms, especially viruses, which still are defined using the same concepts and knowledge of the fifties.
众所周知，病毒数量众多、无处不在，并且在生命有机体的健康和进化过程中发挥着非常重要的作用。然而，大多数生物学家认为它们是与生命领域分离的实体，仅仅作为能够在不同生物体之间交换基因的机械性产物。本文回顾了一些关于生命有机体的定义，以确定病毒是否符合这些定义，此外，还考虑了一些新发现，以挑战当前对病毒的定义。生命有机体的定义已经得到修订，以便验证病毒如何与之契合。文中讨论了病毒工厂，因为这些微型细胞器是病毒感染复杂性的一个很好的例子，它并非对细胞结构的机械性侵占，而是一种由病毒和细胞酶导致细胞结构重组和修饰的驱动力。诸如巨型病毒、其噬病毒体以及在宿主细胞外产生丝状尾巴的病毒等新发现，促使科学界分析当前对病毒的定义。一种实现创新自由的方法是向生命学习，摒弃僵化的思维结构，不被过去所束缚，以便从整体视角理解未来研究中将会出现的新发现。必须从复杂性和跨学科性的角度审视生命过程，这包括并接受生命有机体活跃过程的时间性、它们之间及其与环境的相互依存和相互关系。必须找到新的见解来重新定义生命有机体，尤其是病毒，因为它们至今仍沿用五十年代的相同概念和知识来定义。
