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Which of the characteristics of living things does a virus have and which is it lacking.?

April 26, 2017Biology characteristics lacking Living Mathematics virus

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Which of the characteristics of living things does a virus have and which is it lacking.?

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Unlike other living things a virus does not need nutrients to survive and does not carry out cellular respiration to extract energy, it needs no energy and indeed it has no metabolic pathways. It is basically a piece of infectious DNA or RNA, containing 3 to 100 genes according to species, inside a protective protein coat (capsid). In common with living things it reproduces but then again for that to happen it has to take over and use the DNA and protein producing machinery of a host organism.