After adsorption and penetration, a virus hijacks a cell's metabolic machinery and uses it as a medium for its reproduction and growth through multiplication. Growth is competitive, since the same precursors and machinery are used by both the virus and its host cell. But what drives a virus to perform its life cycle more efficiently than its host? Gibbs energy represents the driving force for all chemical reactions in nature. Therefore, hypothetically Gibbs energy of growth can represent the driving force of viral lytic cycle. After chemical characterization of 17 viruses and their hosts, in this paper, growth reactions were suggested, and enthalpy, entropy and Gibbs free energy of both formation and growth were calculated. By comparing the Gibbs energy of growth of viruses and their hosts, it has been found that a virus always has a more negative Gibbs free energy of growth than its host implying that synthesis of viral components is more thermodynamically favorable. Thus, it seems th...at the physical laws explain observed biological phenomena - the hijack of host life machinery and high efficiency of virus growth.
Keywords:
Microbiology / Biophysics / Thermodynamics / Chemical reaction kinetics / Biophysical chemistry / Virology / Virus / Organism empirical formula / Growth reaction / Gibbs free energy of growth / Growth rate
TY - JOUR
AU - Popović, Marko
AU - Minceva, Mirjana
PY - 2020
UR - https://cer.ihtm.bg.ac.rs/handle/123456789/6079
AB - After adsorption and penetration, a virus hijacks a cell's metabolic machinery and uses it as a medium for its reproduction and growth through multiplication. Growth is competitive, since the same precursors and machinery are used by both the virus and its host cell. But what drives a virus to perform its life cycle more efficiently than its host? Gibbs energy represents the driving force for all chemical reactions in nature. Therefore, hypothetically Gibbs energy of growth can represent the driving force of viral lytic cycle. After chemical characterization of 17 viruses and their hosts, in this paper, growth reactions were suggested, and enthalpy, entropy and Gibbs free energy of both formation and growth were calculated. By comparing the Gibbs energy of growth of viruses and their hosts, it has been found that a virus always has a more negative Gibbs free energy of growth than its host implying that synthesis of viral components is more thermodynamically favorable. Thus, it seems that the physical laws explain observed biological phenomena - the hijack of host life machinery and high efficiency of virus growth.
PB - Elsevier
T2 - Heliyon
T1 - A thermodynamic insight into viral infections: do viruses in a lytic cycle hijack cell metabolism due to their low Gibbs energy?
VL - 6
IS - 5
SP - e03933
DO - 10.1016/j.heliyon.2020.e03933
ER -
@article{
author = "Popović, Marko and Minceva, Mirjana",
year = "2020",
abstract = "After adsorption and penetration, a virus hijacks a cell's metabolic machinery and uses it as a medium for its reproduction and growth through multiplication. Growth is competitive, since the same precursors and machinery are used by both the virus and its host cell. But what drives a virus to perform its life cycle more efficiently than its host? Gibbs energy represents the driving force for all chemical reactions in nature. Therefore, hypothetically Gibbs energy of growth can represent the driving force of viral lytic cycle. After chemical characterization of 17 viruses and their hosts, in this paper, growth reactions were suggested, and enthalpy, entropy and Gibbs free energy of both formation and growth were calculated. By comparing the Gibbs energy of growth of viruses and their hosts, it has been found that a virus always has a more negative Gibbs free energy of growth than its host implying that synthesis of viral components is more thermodynamically favorable. Thus, it seems that the physical laws explain observed biological phenomena - the hijack of host life machinery and high efficiency of virus growth.",
publisher = "Elsevier",
journal = "Heliyon",
title = "A thermodynamic insight into viral infections: do viruses in a lytic cycle hijack cell metabolism due to their low Gibbs energy?",
volume = "6",
number = "5",
pages = "e03933",
doi = "10.1016/j.heliyon.2020.e03933"
}
Popović, M.,& Minceva, M.. (2020). A thermodynamic insight into viral infections: do viruses in a lytic cycle hijack cell metabolism due to their low Gibbs energy?. in Heliyon
Elsevier., 6(5), e03933.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2020.e03933
Popović M, Minceva M. A thermodynamic insight into viral infections: do viruses in a lytic cycle hijack cell metabolism due to their low Gibbs energy?. in Heliyon. 2020;6(5):e03933.
doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2020.e03933 .
Popović, Marko, Minceva, Mirjana, "A thermodynamic insight into viral infections: do viruses in a lytic cycle hijack cell metabolism due to their low Gibbs energy?" in Heliyon, 6, no. 5 (2020):e03933,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2020.e03933 . .
