Division of Virology, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Institute of Medical Science, The University of Tokyo, 4-6-1, Shirokanedai, Minato-ku, Tokyo, 108-8639, Japan.
Division of Virology, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Institute of Medical Science, The University of Tokyo, 4-6-1, Shirokanedai, Minato-ku, Tokyo, 108-8639, Japan.
Virus Res. 2019 Dec;274:197751. doi: 10.1016/j.virusres.2019.197751. Epub 2019 Sep 11.
Given that approximately 10 virus particles exist on Earth and all of them are parasitic in living organisms, it is not hard to imagine how virus infection might affect the physiology of hosts and their ecosystems. However, traditional virology research tends to focus on viral pathogenicity or the individual pathogenic viruses; hence, the significance of viruses and viral-mediated processes in the global ecosystem has been poorly understood. To identify the previously unrecognized "raison d'etre of viruses" in nature, we established a research community, designated as the 'Neo-virology' consortium. In this consortium, we define a virus as a component of the global ecosystem and our aim is to elucidate its key roles in host organisms, that is, the intra-host ecosystem.
鉴于地球上大约存在 10 种病毒颗粒，而且所有这些病毒颗粒都寄生在生物体中，因此不难想象病毒感染可能会如何影响宿主的生理学及其生态系统。然而，传统的病毒学研究往往侧重于病毒的致病性或个别致病性病毒；因此，病毒及其介导的过程在全球生态系统中的重要性尚未得到充分理解。为了确定自然界中以前未被认识到的“病毒存在的理由”，我们建立了一个研究团体，称为“新病毒学”联盟。在这个联盟中，我们将病毒定义为全球生态系统的一个组成部分，我们的目标是阐明其在宿主生物体中的关键作用，也就是在宿主内生态系统中的作用。
