{"id":104844,"date":"2020-04-06T06:04:30","date_gmt":"2020-04-06T13:04:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2020\/04\/viruses-dont-have-a-metabolism-but-some-have-the-building-blocks-for-one"},"modified":"2020-04-06T06:04:30","modified_gmt":"2020-04-06T13:04:30","slug":"viruses-dont-have-a-metabolism-but-some-have-the-building-blocks-for-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2020\/04\/viruses-dont-have-a-metabolism-but-some-have-the-building-blocks-for-one","title":{"rendered":"Viruses don\u2019t have a metabolism; but some have the building blocks for one"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/viruses-dont-have-a-metabolism-but-some-have-the-building-blocks-for-one.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In satellite photos of the Earth, clouds of bright green bloom across the surface of lakes and oceans as algae populations explode in nutrient-rich water. From the air, the algae appear to be the primary players in the ecological drama unfolding below.<\/p>\n<p>But those <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/single-celled+organisms\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">single-celled organisms<\/a> we credit for influencing the aquatic environment at the base of the food chain may be under the influence of something else: <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/viruses\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">viruses<\/a> whose <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/genes\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">genes<\/a> can reconfigure their hosts\u2019 metabolism.<\/p>\n<p>In a new study published in <i>Nature Communications<\/i>, a research team from Virginia Tech reported that they had found a substantial collection of genes for metabolic cycles\u2014a defining characteristic of cellular life\u2014in a wide range of \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/giant+viruses\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">giant viruses<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In satellite photos of the Earth, clouds of bright green bloom across the surface of lakes and oceans as algae populations explode in nutrient-rich water. From the air, the algae appear to be the primary players in the ecological drama unfolding below. But those single-celled organisms we credit for influencing the aquatic environment at the [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biological"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104844"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104844\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}