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by Welkin Johnson
It is possible that some viruses evolved from free living organisms, shedding their independent functions on the path to becoming "obligatory intracellular parasites." What minimal steps would be absolutely essential for this process to work in reverse, for a virus to slip the surly bonds of the cell and become an autonomously replicating unit?
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The entire mimvirus phenomenon has muddied the water in a deliciously confusing manner.
But I often think about phage Mu---a transposon that has metaphorically grown legs and gained something like independence.
Perhaps there is more than one road travelled to become a viral entity!
Posted by: Mark O. Martin | February 05, 2009 at 11:16 PM