Viruses are living organisms Research Proposal Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Viruses are living organisms - Research Proposal Example Viruses are not as alive as bacteria because bacteria are proven to contain DNA which is missing in Viruses. However Viruses are not dead. They may lie dormant for certain period of time and then become active when they find a host. Thus we can say that viruses are very close to life and are only looking for a suitable host. Once the host is found, viruses can multiply rapidly just like bacteria. Mahy (1998) explains, "Outside a living cell, viruses are unable to multiply; they must enter a living cell - called the host cell - to reproduce. Thus, viruses exist at the threshold of life, and their multiplication is intricately bound up with cellular processes of the host. For this reason, antibiotics, which stop the multiplication of bacteria, cannot be used against viruses, since most substances that stop virus multiplication will also kill the host cells." As mentioned above, another important distinction lies in the presence or absence of DNA that distinguishes viruses from other living organisms like plants and bacteria. For an organism to qualify as living, it must contain both DNA and RNA. DNA is responsible for heredity while RNA aids in cellular functions. In most viruses, only RNA is found while DNA is missing. But interestingly scientists have found some viruses that contain DNA and no RNA. In other words, viruses are still not living organisms in the way bacteria are because to qualify as a living thing, they must have both RNA and DNA. Absence of either one can mean sub-life existence. Viruses are also different on account of the genes present in them. It must be argued that living organisms need a large number of genes to qualify as living things. Based on this presumption, we can say that even the smallest of bacteria are more alive than viruses. This is explained by Oldstone (2000) in these words: "Viruses have relatively few genes compared with other organisms. Measles virus, yellow fever virus, poliomyelitis virus, Lassa fever virus, Ebola virus, Hantavirus, as well as the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), have fewer than ten genes each, whereas a smallpox virus may contain between 200 and 400 genes. These numbers compare with 5,000 to 10,000 genes for the smallest bacteria and approximately 80,000 to 100,000 genes for a human." (p. 9) These are the reasons why Viruses are neither called dead nor alive. They however qualify for a near-alive status because once they find a host; they can multiply with amazing rapidity and can suddenly become very active. In their dormant state however, they are nothing more than a speck of nucleic acid material. It must then be concluded that viruses cannot be called alive in the true sense of the word though they are almost-alive and act like parasites waiting for a suitable host. It must also be mentioned here that a living organism is one that is not dependent on other organism for its survival. Viruses meet this requirement to an extent because while they depend on a host for multiplication and activity, they do not exactly die when they are left alone. Instead they stay dormant till they find an organism to live upon. "Viruses never really die. If viruses are not actively reproducing, they can indefinitely maintain an inert state." (Goudsmit, p. 5) It would thus not be wrong to say that viruses maintain an almost-alive state but are not as living as bacteria or some other organisms capable of reproduction. They do not both DNA