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- Title
Redefining viruses: lessons from Mimivirus.
- Authors
Raoult, Didier; Forterre, Patrick
- Abstract
Viruses are the most abundant living entities and probably had a major role in the evolution of life, but are still defined using negative criteria. Here, we propose to divide biological entities into two groups of organisms: ribosome-encoding organisms, which include eukaryotic, archaeal and bacterial organisms, and capsid-encoding organisms, which include viruses. Other replicons (for example, plasmids and viroids) can be termed 'orphan replicons'. Based on this suggested classification system, we propose a new definition for a virus--a capsid-encoding organism that is composed of proteins and nucleic acids, self-assembles in a nucleocapsid and uses a ribosome-encoding organism for the completion of its life cycle.
- Publication
Nature reviews. Microbiology, 2008, Vol 6, Issue 4, p315
- ISSN
1740-1534
- Publication type
Review
- DOI
10.1038/nrmicro1858