VIRAL FUNCTIONS: ORDER AND DISORDER 



for cancer. The infected cell is sometimes killed; it sometimes 

 survives. When it survives, it is endowed with the potentiality for 

 producing virus in the absence of infection; it is immune to super- 

 infection. It may also be modified in its morphology and physiology. 

 But there is something more: the animal cell/virus system is now 

 malignant. Injected into an animal, it multiplies and kills its host. 

 The original cell was normal, subject to the factors that control 

 cell reproduction. The transformed cell has lost its sensitivity to 

 these yet-unknown factors. Whether or not the genetic material of 

 the virus multiplies autonomously as provirus is not yet known. It 

 could be one way or the other, according to the nature of the 

 cell and of the virus. At least one thing is certain. In some of the 

 animal cell/oncogenic virus systems, viral functions are repressed. 

 Viral antigens and infectious particles are not produced. When, 

 as a result of an alteration of the cell's environment, viral functions 

 are derepressed, viral antigens and viral particles are produced. The 

 cancer problem is not solved so far; the nature of the cellular modi- 

 fication which is due to the virus or provirus and responsible for 

 malignancy is still unknown. Yet it is interesting to consider the 

 animal cell/provirus system. As already stated, the bacterium is an 

 organism, the normal cell a dependent part of an organism. The 

 malignant cell behaves in the animal as if it were independent, and 

 the host is killed. 



A virus, in order to be oncogenic, must not kill the cell it infects. 

 And a low virulence for the cell may mean a high degree of patho- 

 genicity for the animal. It is, however, not the oncogenic virus itself 

 that kills the cancerous animal but the cell/virus system, the cell 

 modified by the virus. The fact that specific repressors are known 

 to control some viral functions opens a new way of approach to 

 the problem of oncogenic viruses. 



According to the Platonic concept, all things originate in their 

 opposites. Darkness comes from light, cold from heat, pleasure from 

 pain. Biological order had its origin in primitive disorder. But if 

 the question is asked: What can originate from order? the only 

 possible answer is disorder. 



It is clear that the superposition of two types of structural order 

 may be responsible for functional disorder. Structures and functions 



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