Virus: Importance in Economy and Environment

Since Viruses contain the characteristics of both living and non-living organisms, they are utilized in the field of Biotechnology research.  Bacteriophage can be used in water preservation as it can destroy the bacteria and keep water fresh. Here are some other applications of Viruses:

• Molecular Biology, Cellular Biology, Molecular genetics, such as DNA replication, transcription, RNA processing, translation, protein transport, and immunology.
• Virotherapy uses viruses as vectors to treat various diseases, as they can specifically target cells and DNA. It shows promising use in the treatment of cancer and in gene therapy.
• The viruses represent largest reservoirs of unexplored genetic diversity on Earth. They can be used as alternative to the antibiotics because of the high level of antibiotic resistance now found in some pathogenic bacteria.
• Viruses contain protein and this property can be used in production of various proteins such as vaccine antigens and antibodies.
• In nanotechnology, viruses can be regarded as organic nanoparticles. Because of their size, shape, and well-defined chemical structures, viruses have been used as templates for organizing materials on the nanoscale.
• It’s relatively easy to synthesize a new Virus. First synthetic virus was created in 2002, which is actually a DNA genome (in case of a DNA virus), or a cDNA copy of its genome (in case of RNA viruses). Ability to synthesize viruses has far-reaching consequences, since viruses can no longer be regarded as extinct; as long as the information of their genome sequence is known and permissive cells are available. Currently, the full-length genome sequences of 2408 different viruses (including smallpox) are publicly available at an online database.
• Viruses can cause devastating epidemics in human societies. They can be weaponised for biological warfare.

Virus and Aquatic Ecosystem

A teaspoon of seawater contains about one million of Viruses, making them the most abundant biological entity in aquatic environments. They are useful in the regulation of saltwater and freshwater ecosystems. The Bacteriophage, which is harmless to plants and animals, play the most important role here. They infect and destroy the bacteria in aquatic microbial communities, comprising the most important mechanism of recycling carbon in the marine environment. However, the organic molecules released from the bacterial cells by the viruses stimulate fresh bacterial and algal growth. Viruses are useful for the rapid destruction of harmful algal blooms that arises generally from the Blue Green algae and often kills other marine life. Viruses INCREASE the amount of Photosynthesis in Oceans and are responsible for reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by approximately 3 gigatonnes of carbon per year.