Do we carry dead viruses? If so, could you name some examples?

Question

sh3lsh · Answer

I know we carry plant viruses and other viruses that aren't able to infect us.

kainui · Answer

I don't really know that much about viruses, but I am not quite sure if "dead" is an accurate way to ever describe a virus, as it is never really alive or dead by our standards.

Some viruses remain silently integrated into a host's DNA without any affect at all, and then after the host has reproduced several times, the phage DNA can create proteins and destroy the cell to spread.

Some viruses never leave this cycle and just remain dormant in our DNA. This is extremely useful for tracking ancestry in the tree of evolution to help see how far or closely related we are to each other by looking at our genomes and seeing what viruses we have latent in our DNA.

I don't know if that answers your question very well, but I tried.

sh3lsh · Answer

Haha. You did well. I didn't know that some viruses never leave the lysogenic stage. I figured after replicating they WOULD enter the lytic stage. Thanks.

kainui · Answer

Nope, they can stay in the lysogenic stage indefinitely, until the proper intercellular conditions are met to induce the lytic cycle. =D