A thermodynamic insight into viral infections: do viruses in a lytic cycle hijack cell metabolism due to their low Gibbs energy?

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.