We hear a lot about helpful bacteria in our body such as in our guts helping us digest food. What about viruses? Are there any known viruses that help our body and if so what is it referred to? Just curious if there is such a thing as a good virus like there is with bacteria.
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My understanding of this is let’s say, simple, and in no way shape or form am i an expert.
However, I have gone down many rabbit holes and have found many studies that are newish in studying viruses that are beneficial or could be. To start it is hypothesized that 30% or more of human evolution is due to viruses. So short term viruses bad, long term they made us stronger survivors of the natural world. I have also seen that nonsypmtomatic herpes virus is making big ground in cancer cell killing, so, bad, but maybe potential good in controlled use. From my rabbit hole education that is likely wrong, viruses are generally bad because uncontrolled changes to DNA is pretty much always bad.
You are almost never going to find a ‘helpful’ virus because, unlike bacteria, viruses are basically nothing but an intercellular “mail this to 100 of your friends!” spam message instructing your cells to produce more of the virus, which they do until they burst (spreading the virus to all the surrounding cells and repeating the process). There’s no room for positive elements to their function since there’s almost nothing to a virus besides the message (genetic material, usually RNA) and an envelope (a lipid (fat molecule) coat).
Bacteria can be helpful because they are their own organism, living inside your body and doing their own thing (which can be helpful or harmful depending on the bacteria in question).
EDIT: Viruses can be made to be helpful with gene therapy – scientists have modified certain viruses to only target cancerous cells, for example.
Some viruses in plants can help them resist droughts
Some viruses in mammals can help protect against other viruses
Some viruses can be used to implant genes into cells (some have been able to cure hemophilia)
Viruses helped developed the placenta and are an integral part of our existence; they can kill off hundreds of millions, or cure disease.
Parasitic wasps have viral genomes in their DNA and inject viral particles along with eggs when they parasitize prey.
There are bacteriophages (viruses that infect bacteria) that can protect us from harmful bacterial infections. There are also viruses that can protect us from being infected by other, harmful viruses. Some viruses produce proteins that are beneficial and their presence can be considered symbiotic. Retroviruses in the distant past have had portions of their DNA incorporated into ours and passed down through the generation, providing benefits and influencing our evolution. Other viruses have been shown to only infect cancer cells and are being researched as a treatment option. Of course there are also man-made viruses that are being used to treat various diseases and disorders, or provide protection against diseases.
Sure. [Phages](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacteriophage). Viruses for bacteria. Since they’re generally only effective against bacteria (and certain bacteria at that), they’re safe for humans to consume/inject to fight off bacteria infections. Similar to anti-biotics like penicillin, a bacteria that eats other bacteria. The enemy of my enemy is a useful tool, if not a friend.
Then there is their roll in the cas9-crispr thing… which I don’t really get.
And to an extent, you could say that all of them are good in that they force organisms to check and correct themselves. To not have vulnerabilities. Imagine a island where nobody stole anything and so nobody had any locks on their doors. All is good right? Well then sailboats are invented and a bunch of outsiders come in, bringing over some theives who can casually just pilfer whatever they want whenever they want. Similarly, one of the reasons that natives in America got wrecked was because Europeans lived in such squalor so close to all those animals for such a long time that they built up a strong immune system. So the local American diseases and plagues didn’t wreck the conquistadors nearly as much as smallpox killed the local people. Another example of something similar is the increase soap usage and cleanliness leading to kids with poor immune systems leading to the polio outbreak. It’s less “disease makes you healthy” so much as viruses help keep populations healthy by killing off the ones that aren’t healthy.
I was watching this show, i think it was a documentary because it was British, about this mining corporation which had a really robust medical lab. They discovered that luck and sexual magnetism are positive viruses and can be used to great success for escaping quarantine lock downs, finding specialized technical equipment, and so on.
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