Abstract
Viruses are enigmatic, with scientists debating, often heatedly, about the nature of their existence, such as whether viruses should be categorized as living or non-living. They are not even represented in most conventional trees of life. However, viruses have played a driving role in the co-evolution of life on Earth since its origins. Viruses can serve as molecular fossils, providing a possible glimpse at a pool of genes that may have been present from a time before the Last Universal Common Ancestor (LUCA). The study of virology and the origin of life have often been intertwined. Since the earliest studies of viruses, viruses have been hypothesized to be ancient, possibly anteceding cell-based life. Other hypotheses propose that cell-based life preceded viruses, with viruses “escaping” from cellular life forms. This chapter will introduce viruses and their relationship with the origin of life, including the various proposed origin scenarios involving viruses and virus-like elements.
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Notes
- 1.
D’Herelle was appointed “Professor of Protobiology” at Yale in 1928. While it had originally referred to the study of bacteriophage, interestingly, nowadays protobiology more often refers to the study of the origin of life.
- 2.
This association with disease likely formed an initial bias in the field of virology towards the study of disease-causing viruses infecting humans and other animals and plants of economic importance.
- 3.
An early type of porcelain filter developed in 1884 by Charles Chamberland, who worked with Louis Pasteur.
- 4.
This initiated a distinction between the viruses of prokaryotes and eukaryotes. The prokaryote/eukaryote division divided virology between the study of “bacteriophage” and the study of eukaryotic “viruses”, a division that is still palpable today (Forterre 2010). This distinction was also formed before the discovery of archaea, creating a confusing situation in which many had referred to archaeal viruses as archaeal phage (Abedon and Murray 2013).
- 5.
Interestingly, in his 1963 Nobel lecture, André Lwoff had also referred to the infected cell as being converted into a “virus factory” by the virus (Lwoff 1966).
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Pan, D. (2021). Virus Origins and the Origin of Life. In: Neubeck, A., McMahon, S. (eds) Prebiotic Chemistry and the Origin of Life. Advances in Astrobiology and Biogeophysics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-81039-9_8
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