What does "acellular" mean?
Latin prefix and- means "without". The Latin word cellula means "a small room". Acellular is the term most recognized in biological sciences, which means living things without conventional cellular structures and functions. The metabolic function of the cell - breathing, growth, reproduction - were accepted as the necessary definition of life itself. Eggs are a quintessential cell model, ostrich egg is the largest known sample of one cell. Difficult, because it is to understand, with a very large span, most of the overall biomass of the Earth is a unicellular life - organisms, such as organismbacteria consisting of only one cell. At the turn of the 21st century, acellular organisms such as viruses, without one or more defining cell characteristics, discovered progress in technology and microbiology.
As with an ostrich egg is traditionally indispensable key characteristic of the cell, its cover, shell, cell membrane. It was assumed that the only complex cell has a capacity of life, because all the necessary functional ingredients were independent and accessible. The unicellular protozoa called Ciliates also has a small, vibrating hair growth that protrudes from the cell membranes and allow them to move. This mobility, interpreted as effective, represented the deterministic principle of life. The most common alternative significance is an obvious life that is not closed by the cell membrane.
Most scientists, certainly Virologists, believed that viruses are alive, although they are mostly only the sources of their specific genetic material praise in the protective cloak of specific proteins that help them identify and infect other host cells. They were originally thought that they were inert in some sense, with their sometimes harmful effects only metabolic changes in their living host organisms. In 2003, a class of unusually large viruses called mimivirus was detected, whichIt is able to create proteins themselves without the host. This has led to a speculative assumption that there may be many other viruses with abilities that have once been reserved for a mobile lifetime.
Acellular entity is by definition less than a cell. Such organisms are difficult to find, much less studies, without the help of imaging equipment such as electron microscopes. However, science continues to discover not only new viruses, but also other unique acellular entities, such as Prions and Fosmids, it could be candidates for the nickname "living organism". A completely separate classification name, acytota was designed for them. Whether acellular organisms really represent life, long -term cell theory and accepted definitions of life are under scientific challenges.