Krail t1_jbrbzeh wrote on March 11, 2023 at 2:40 AM

Reply to comment by theSPOOKYnegus in I just learned that the known shortest DNA in an “organism” is about 1700 base pairs in a certain virus. Is there a minimum amount of “code” required for an organism (or virus) to function in any capacity? by mcbergstedt

I've heard one interpretation that a virus particle could be thought of as analogous to a seed, and that an infected cell effectively becomes a virus organism.