van Regenmortel M H V
UMR 7242 Biotechnologie et Signalisation Cellulaire, Université de Strasbourg-CNRS, 300, Boulevard Sébastien Brant, CS 10413 67412 Illkirch cedex, France.
Stud Hist Philos Biol Biomed Sci. 2016 Oct;59:117-24. doi: 10.1016/j.shpsc.2016.02.017. Epub 2016 Mar 9.
Virologists often use anthropomorphic metaphors to vividly describe the properties of viruses and this has led some virologists to claim that viruses are living microorganisms. The discovery of giant viruses that are larger and have a more complex genome than small bacteria has fostered the interpretation that viral factories, which are the compartments in virus-infected cells where the virus is being replicated, are able to transform themselves into a new type of living viral organism called a virocell. However, because of the widespread occurrence of horizontal gene transfer, endosymbiosis and hybridization in the evolution of viral genomes, it has not been possible to include metaphorical virocells in the so-called Tree of Life which itself is a metaphor. In the case of viruses that cause human diseases, the infection process is usually presented metaphorically as a war between host and virus and it is assumed that a virus such as the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is able to develop new strategies and mechanisms for escaping protective host immune responses. However, the ability of the virus to defeat the immune system is solely due to stochastic mutations arising from the error-prone activity of the viral enzyme reverse transcriptase. The following two types of metaphors will be distinguished: an intentionality metaphor commonly used for attributing goals and intentions to organisms and the living virus metaphor that considers viruses to be actually living organisms.
病毒学家经常使用拟人化的隐喻来生动地描述病毒的特性，这使得一些病毒学家声称病毒是有生命的微生物。巨型病毒的发现，其比小细菌更大且基因组更复杂，这促使了一种解释，即病毒工厂（病毒感染细胞中病毒进行复制的区室）能够转化为一种名为病毒细胞的新型有生命的病毒生物体。然而，由于水平基因转移、内共生和杂交在病毒基因组进化中广泛存在，所以无法将隐喻性的病毒细胞纳入本身就是一种隐喻的所谓生命之树中。对于引起人类疾病的病毒，感染过程通常被隐喻地描述为主与病毒之间的一场战争，并且假定诸如人类免疫缺陷病毒（HIV）之类的病毒能够开发新的策略和机制来逃避宿主的保护性免疫反应。然而，病毒战胜免疫系统的能力完全归因于病毒酶逆转录酶易错活性产生的随机突变。将区分以下两种类型的隐喻：一种常用于赋予生物体目标和意图的意向性隐喻，以及将病毒视为实际有生命生物体的有生命病毒隐喻。
