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If I had to pick one, I'd say heterotrophic, but really they're not any of the above.

Autotrophic (which includes hemosynthetic) and heterotrophic describe where a living thing gets its energy. Viruses aren't really living things. Also, they don't produce their own energy.

Let's take poliovirus as an example. It consists of genetic material (RNA) inside a capside (a shell made of protein). It just floats until it binds to a receptor, gets taken up by a cell, and releases its RNA into the cell. All of this is done with the cell's energy. Then it uses the cell's supplies of molecules, machinery, and energy to replicate, making more copies of itself. It never actually produces ATP energy.

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16y ago

What else can I help you with?