Viruses: are they living entities?

The essence (living or nonliving entities) of viruses has today become an aporia, i.e. a difficulty inherent in reasoning because they shared four fundamental characteristics with livings (multiplication, genetic information, mutation and evolution) without having the capacity to have an independent life. For much time, however, they were considered minuscule pathogenetic micro-organisms in observance of Koch and Pasteur's 'germ theory' albeit no microbiologist could show their existence except their filterability and pathogenetic action. Only some voices based on experimental results raised against this dogmatic view, in particular those of Beijerinck, Baur and Mrowka, without dipping effectively into the dominant theory. The discovery relative to their nucleoprotein nature made between 1934 and 1936 (Schlesinger as for the phage, and Bawden and co-operators as for Tobacco mosaic virus; TMV), together with the first demonstrations of their structures thanks to electron microscopy (from 1939 onwards) started on casting a new light on their true identity, which could be more clearly identified when, from 1955 onwards, phage and TMV proved to be decisive factors to understand the strategies of replication of the genetic material. Following the new knowledge, the theoretical view relative to viruses changed rather radically and the current view looks on these pathogenetic agents as nonliving aggregates of macromolecules provided with biological properties. There is, however, a current of thought, made explicitly by Lwoff that places viruses as compromise between living and non living and, perhaps, as primitive forms of life which have had great importance for the evolution of cellular life. At any rate, viruses are peculiar entities whose importance cannot be unacknowledged.