Are Viroids Molecular Fossils of the RNA World?

We discuss a difficulty that may be raised against the Diener hypothesis that viroids may be interpreted as molecular fossils of the RNA world. We provide a possible way of removing such a difficulty (hence supporting the Diener hypothesis). Our reasoning entails further work by plant pathologists o...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of theoretical biology Vol. 166; no. 2; pp. 163 - 166
Main Author Chela-Flores, Julian
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Sidcup Elsevier Ltd 1994
Elsevier
Subjects
Biological and medical sciences
Biological evolution
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Genetics
Genetics of eukaryotes. Biological and molecular evolution
Microbiology
Virology
Virus
Molecular evolution
Intracellular symbiosis
Plant pathogen
RNA
Biological evolution
Viroid
Cyanobacteria
Bacteria
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Summary:We discuss a difficulty that may be raised against the Diener hypothesis that viroids may be interpreted as molecular fossils of the RNA world. We provide a possible way of removing such a difficulty (hence supporting the Diener hypothesis). Our reasoning entails further work by plant pathologists on a proposed search for a well-defined molecular process. It is shown that such process would be of biological and evolutionary significance.
ISSN:0022-5193
1095-8541
DOI:10.1006/jtbi.1994.1014