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From Viruses to Genes: Syncytins

In Witzany Guenther (ed.), Viruses: Essential Agents of Life. Dordrecht: Springer. pp. 325--361 (2012)

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  1. Quasispecies Productivity.Guenther Witzany - 2024 - The Science of Nature (Naturwissenschaften) 111:11.
    Abstract The quasispecies theory is a helpful concept in the explanation of RNA virus evolution and behaviour, with a relevant impact on methods used to fight viral diseases. It has undergone some adaptations to integrate new empirical data, especially the non-deterministic nature of mutagenesis, and the variety of behavioural motifs in cooperation, competition, communication, innovation, integration, and exaptation. Also, the consortial structure of quasispecies with complementary roles of memory genomes of minority populations better fits the empirical data than did the (...)
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  • How Viruses Made Us Humans. [REVIEW]Guenther Witzany - 2024 - In Nathalie Gontier, Andy Lock & Chris Sinha (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Human Symbolic Evolution. OUP. pp. 1-20.
    Current research on the origin of DNA and RNA, viruses, and mobile genetic elements prompts a re-evaluation of the origin and nature of genetic material as the driving force behind evolutionary novelty. While scholars used to think that novel features resulted from random genetic mutations of an individual’s specific genome, today we recognize the important role that acquired viruses and mobile genetic elements have played in introducing evolutionary novelty within the genomes of species. Viral infections and subviral RNAs can enter (...)
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  • What is Life?Guenther Witzany - 2020 - Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences 7:1-13.
    In searching for life in extraterrestrial space, it is essential to act based on an unequivocal definition of life. In the twentieth century, life was defined as cells that self-replicate, metabolize, and are open for mutations, without which genetic information would remain unchangeable, and evolution would be impossible. Current definitions of life derive from statistical mechanics, physics, and chemistry of the twentieth century in which life is considered to function machine like, ignoring a central role of communication. Recent observations show (...)
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  • That is life: communicating RNA networks from viruses and cells in continuous interaction.Guenther Witzany - 2019 - Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences:1-16.
    All the conserved detailed results of evolution stored in DNA must be read, transcribed, and translated via an RNAmediated process. This is required for the development and growth of each individual cell. Thus, all known living organisms fundamentally depend on these RNA-mediated processes. In most cases, they are interconnected with other RNAs and their associated protein complexes and function in a strictly coordinated hierarchy of temporal and spatial steps (i.e., an RNA network). Clearly, all cellular life as we know it (...)
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  • Communication as the Main Characteristic of Life.Guenther Witzany - 2019 - In M. Kolb Vera (ed.), Handbook of Astrobiology. CrC Press. pp. 91-105.
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  • Artificial and Natural Genetic Information Processing.Guenther Witzany - 2017 - In Mark Burgin & Wolfgang Hoflkirchner (eds.), Information Studies and the Quest for Transdisciplinarity. New York, USA: World Scientific. pp. 523-547.
    Conventional methods of genetic engineering and more recent genome editing techniques focus on identifying genetic target sequences for manipulation. This is a result of historical concept of the gene which was also the main assumption of the ENCODE project designed to identify all functional elements in the human genome sequence. However, the theoretical core concept changed dramatically. The old concept of genetic sequences which can be assembled and manipulated like molecular bricks has problems in explaining the natural genome-editing competences of (...)
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  • Life is physics and chemistry and communication.Gunther Witzany - 2015 - In Guenther Witzany (ed.), DNA Habitats and Their RNA Inhabitants. pp. 1-9.
    Manfred Eigen extended Erwin Schroedinger’s concept of “life is physics and chemistry” through the introduction of information theory and cybernetic systems theory into “life is physics and chemistry and information.” Based on this assumption, Eigen developed the concepts of quasispecies and hypercycles, which have been dominant in molecular biology and virology ever since. He insisted that the genetic code is not just used metaphorically: it represents a real natural language.However, the basics of scientific knowledge changed dramatically within the second half (...)
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