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Author | Topic: Did viruses precede other life? | |||||||||||||||||||||||
extremophile Member (Idle past 5623 days) Posts: 53 Joined: |
May 6, 2004
Did viruses precede other life? Structural studies on ancient virus reveal clues about the evolution of life on Earth | By Cathy Holding Page Not Found I found this interesting, I'm somewhat new to this forum, so I don't know the most appropriated place to post news.... maybe the forum of the subjetc of the news, in this case "origins of life"... but i'm not sure if is used to have news posted here at all, so I did it here...
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NosyNed Member Posts: 9004 From: Canada Joined: |
It is very interesting. Thanks for pointing it out.
(my other self will move it to the appropriate thread)
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AdminNosy Administrator Posts: 4754 From: Vancouver, BC, Canada Joined: |
Thread moved here from the Short Subjects forum.
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1433 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
I'll second that. Reminds me of a certain 'conversation' with DNAUnion ... to be polite about it.
Fits with thoughts I have had. Bookmarked as I may find more use for it. we are limited in our ability to understand by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}
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Ooook! Member (Idle past 5843 days) Posts: 340 From: London, UK Joined: |
Reminds me of a certain 'conversation' with DNAUnion ... to be polite about it. I think I was probably in on that thread, but was banging my bonce against a different set of brickwork so I might have missed the details. It seems to me that it maybe is a bit bold to claim that viruses came before the earliest life. The evidence seems (I haven't looked at the paper in full yet) to be consistant with viruses having a common ancestor, and that they evolved early on alongside very early replicators. ps thanks for the cat link by the way, I was hoping for a creationist to bite at the bait - but no luck
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SUnderwood Inactive Member |
If we continue our Victorian line of thinking in categories, then you'll probably conclude that viruses did indeed come first.
If, by life, we mean cell creatures, viruses being much smaller chunks of "life's" main code - cheifly RNA/DNA - must have been in existance befor our little cell friends even "come into existance". After this "event", you would be correct to think that viruses actually come from celled creatures; being breakaway strands of RNA that slip through the cell walls and out into the great wide world. What I find interesting about viruses is that you only know you've got one, when your body doesn't like it - you get a cold, or flu, or worse. But what of those little blighters that DON'T raise an rash, not a hair! What of those genes/DNA/RNA being transfered b/w GM crops to non GM crops, or brought into our bodies through digestion and into our cells? Some call this horizontal transfer. Other might call it evolution. Sean
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1433 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
The early chemistry was different from current, and the early environment was different. It is possible for replicator molecules to develope in protocell environments alien to what we think of as cells. Is one of these the ancestor to viruses, another to cellular life?
too bad about the cats. we are limited in our ability to understand by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1433 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
do you think horizontal transfer by virus type mechanism could be a valid cause of {speciation \ "macro"evolution}? it would certainly cause PE events?
we are limited in our ability to understand by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}
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SUnderwood Inactive Member |
Bascially, yes, horizontal transfer of genetic information by viruses is the major driving force behind speciation/"evolution".
Although viruses are seen as a pest, they are genetic mechanisms; so a virus is a carrier of genetic information. When they assimilate with host DNA (as we see with HGT in GM foods) they have "evolved" the host. They have inserted their "viral-gene" into the host. But, an "evolved" host doesn't mean a gene-expressing host. The virus could lay dormant for many generations before activator genes (situated in highly volitile/sensitive regions of DNA) accidently trigger our new viral-gene. When that happens we have two outcomes 1)Death of the organism because of the viral-gene's effect, 2) successful assimilation with host's machinery (and possible benefits that could bring). So, we have two types of "evolution" going on. 1) a sort of genetic macro-evolution with HGT, and 2) a genetic micro-evolution, with activator genes expressing the viral gene. Speciation, you would then understand, would be a mixture of new viral code insertion and/or the *loss* of genetic code, and adjustments to gene activation by activator regions. "Survival of the fittest" would then decide which organism used their normal and viral genes to the most effective outcome (greater multiplication, more resistance, longevity etc you know what i mean). Sean
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1433 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
Bascially, yes, horizontal transfer of genetic information by viruses is the major driving force behind speciation/"evolution". I don't think you can go that far. There are many examples of speciation, but direct connection to viral infection? we are limited in our ability to understand by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}
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Denesha Inactive Member |
Hi RAZD,
And what about Brad McFall's explanation concerning hierarchical thermodynamics ? I've not understood more than 5 % but it seems very clever.
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1433 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
missed it -- can you give me a link? or the topic?
we are limited in our ability to understand by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}
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Ooook! Member (Idle past 5843 days) Posts: 340 From: London, UK Joined: |
Sorry for not getting back quickly, this is partly due to Euro 2004 football on the telly, but mainly due to my slothlike laziness!
I can see what you are saying about different chemistry, but I think (definitely relating to this paper) that this could be a bit of a red herring. For a start the paper is talking about protein motifs, so the period of history they are looking at has chemistry very similar to life today ie nucleic acid encoding for protein. Although early life (ie before the split between Achaea, Bacteria and Eukaryotes) was undoubtably very 'virus-like' in some ways - like having a small genome and a simple structure - to define this stage of life as being viruses would require a redefinition of what a virus is. That said, I believe the evidence that viruses evolved early has strong implications for the history of life on this planet. For example, the Woese model of having a pool of many different protocells being the progenitors of the three domains needs an efficient method of horizontal transfer - viruses are great candidates. Not quite the universal role for viruses envisaged by SUnderwood (I'm not sure, but I think genetic studies would have picked up the significant events he's talking about), but a vital role non-the-less!
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extremophile Member (Idle past 5623 days) Posts: 53 Joined: |
Bascially, yes, horizontal transfer of genetic information by viruses is the major driving force behind speciation/"evolution". ... So, we have two types of "evolution" going on. 1) a sort of genetic macro-evolution with HGT, and 2) a genetic micro-evolution, with activator genes expressing the viral gene.
Doesn't seems to me that this genetic macro evolution by HGT would have a different effect phenotypically than normal mechanisms of genetic-microevolution, since the activation of a H-acquired gene would depends of a regular mutation, which could "hit" any non-expressed gene that came to existance by mutation too. The advantage would be that H-acquired genes would be that it provides a whole ammount of random genes at once, which would take much more time to store by the accumulation of random mutations. Then it would depens on how frequent is HGT for each specific type of organism, in organisms the variation coming from the sum of H-transfered genes is larger than regular sources of variation, HGT would be of great importance in evolution of this type of organism, but yet I can't see it "driving" anything. I can see it more like "fuel", just like regular random mutation, while natural selection that really drives.
Speciation, you would then understand, would be a mixture of new viral code insertion and/or the *loss* of genetic code, and adjustments to gene activation by activator regions.
But... again, I can't see why it differs from regular random mutation in driving to speciation... I don't understand much of this, but I guess that that speciation cames from some differences cumulated in divergence... perhaps with some hierarchy of diferent levels of importance in speciation, such as grouth regulating genes playing a larger role than genes to different fur culor... but I can't see a reason to the genes that would drive to speciation being exactly a H-acquired gene, unless, maybe statistically, if most of the unactive genes are H-acquired, which I don't know if is the case, and I guess that depends much on the type of organism and how frequent HGT is. This message has been edited by extremophile, 09-28-2004 09:53 PM
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Brad McFall Member (Idle past 5061 days) Posts: 3428 From: Ithaca,NY, USA Joined: |
The question would bring back IN GLADYSHEV'S ANSWER, a question as to the LamarkvsDarwin but in a format that Gould thought scholarship on Aristotle by Mayr gained. I did not think so before I was acquainted AGAIN with the thought of Darwinizing hierarchical thermodynamics. Then I had thought
EvC Forum: Genes=Logic Circuits? but now it clear to me that a reply to this thread specifically will require top-down evidence WHERE AND WHEN Georgi had bottom up facts. It might even be > than 4D but lets not get outlandish about it. I am quite certain that VRMLHistory INSTANTIATES hierarchical thermodyanmics but just what the visual of mutiple chromatographic columns would appear like from the organism that the virus IS NOT is completely opaque to me at this time/viewpoint (so far). But I had said quote:. Now we ask the question if two negatives of this
If "viruses are absolute charge carriers" then as Quoting Crick "exact knowledge is the enemy of vitalism" is false. This is logical and I do not relie either on x-ray crystalography or techonological binaries. I have been kicked out of the evolutioist discussion because they simply wanted something they could not have, tommarrow today (see site NAiG etc) and wanted to blame the coming of Chirst FOR ALL OF IT no matter the faith. This is the same error (on a lighter note consider age and area as a joke of Humphries's area clades) as the war against west. If NOW there is no east or west in won no norths or south science did and was map vs sspam. This is science even when I fail to "renew" it.
is a positive! Lets not trick ourseleves but understand today "renew" in my former sense to me "regenerate" in Gladyshev's and try on the logic of that!!SeeFROM http://EvC Forum: Francis Crick's "Molecules & Men"(preview) -->EvC Forum: Francis Crick's "Molecules & Men"(preview)& http://EvC Forum: My Understanding (hypothetically) -->EvC Forum: My Understanding (hypothetically) under ther relusion that "fairy circles" apply to Delbruck's math of the virus (from Bohr) rather than mushroom and since then lichens as I, BSM, have thought. This is what I was hinting at to some extent in EvC Forum: All about Brad McFall.
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