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| Claudiu I. Bandea. |
| The cellular theory on the nature of life has been one of the first major advancements in biology. Viruses, however, are the most abundant life forms, and their exclusion from mainstream biology and the Tree of Life (TOL) is a major paradox in biology. This article presents a broad, unifying scenario on the origin and evolution of cellular and viral domains that challenges the conventional views about the history of life and supports a TOL that includes viruses. Co-evolution of viruses and their host cells has led to some of the most remarkable developments and transitions in the evolution of life, including the origin of non-coding DNA as a genomic protective device against viral insertion damage. However, one of the major fundamental evolutionary... |
| Tipo: Manuscript |
Palavras-chave: Genetics & Genomics; Immunology; Microbiology; Evolutionary Biology. |
| Ano: 2009 |
URL: http://precedings.nature.com/documents/3888/version/1 |
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| Claudiu I. Bandea. |
| Transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs), or prion diseases, are a group of incurable neurodegenerative disorders, including Kuru and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans, “mad cow” disease in cattle, and scrapie in sheep. This paper presents structural, genetic, and evolutionary evidence supporting an endogenous TSE virus model that integrates the three major traditional views on the nature of TSE pathogens, the conventional virus view, the prion hypothesis, and the virino concept, into a novel conceptual and evolutionary framework. According to this model, the TSE pathogens are symbiotic endogenous viruses that inadvertently produce transmissible viral particles that lack the viral genome and are composed primarily of the... |
| Tipo: Manuscript |
Palavras-chave: Microbiology; Neuroscience; Evolutionary Biology. |
| Ano: 2009 |
URL: http://precedings.nature.com/documents/3887/version/1 |
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| Claudiu I. Bandea. |
| Viruses are the most abundant life forms and the repertoire of viral genes is greater than that of cellular genes. It is also evident that viruses have played a major role in driving cellular evolution, and yet, viruses are not part of mainstream biology, nor are they included in the Tree of Life. A reason for this major paradox in biology is the misleading dogma of viruses as viral particles and their enigmatic evolutionary origin. This article presents an alternative view about the nature of viruses based on their properties during the intracellular stage of their life cycle, when viruses express features comparable to those of many parasitic cellular species. Supporting this view about the nature of viruses is a novel hypothetical evolutionary model for... |
| Tipo: Manuscript |
Palavras-chave: Genetics & Genomics; Microbiology; Evolutionary Biology. |
| Ano: 2009 |
URL: http://precedings.nature.com/documents/3886/version/1 |
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