Why can鈥檛 viruses replicate on their own?

3317>They contain no ribosomes, they contain no mitochondria or enzymes for energy production, they contain - in short - none of the machinery of life. Most don't even contain enzymes capable of creating new DNA. They stretch the definition of life. They must, MUST, steal the resources of a host cell to recreate themselves.
Reply:Viruses are certainly not cells. They are very small, simple particles consisting of some DNA or RNA wrapped up in a protein coat. They use the same genetic material as living organisms and they can evolve by natural selection. However they don't possess all the characteristics of a living organism (such as replicating on their own ) and therefore they are usually not considered to be living organisms by biologists. This is why they are not named or classified in the same way.





Hope that's helpful :)
Reply:Viruses are only a few peices of DNA wrapped by a protein coat. their DNA is so short that it can only manage to code for their protein coat and a couple of enzymes to use the host's DNA replicating machinery. they are so small that there is no space to incorporate the vast amount of DNA needed to encode all the various enzymes like polymerases, RNA, ribosomes, etc. they dont even have the capacity of utilizing food or producing energy. therefore there is a debate by scientist whether to consider viruses as living or dead because they dont need oxygen nor water, they dont even need any source of energy. they are just tiny packets of DNA that dont know what to do. it just so happens that theyve evolved to a mechanism to replicate without workign lol.


thus viruses cannot replicate all by themselves as they do not have any of the components required for DNA replication and they dont even have amino acids or dNTPs required to make proteins and DNA and nor can they acquire it from the outside coz they do not have the enzymes to utilize them. so simply they just make the host do all the hard work