Telepathic Genes
by MikeGeneOkay, it's just a catchy title I borrowed, but the research looks interesting:
Genes have the ability to recognise similarities in each other from a distance, without any proteins or other biological molecules aiding the process, according to new research published this week in the Journal of Physical Chemistry B. This discovery could explain how similar genes find each other and group together in order to perform key processes involved in the evolution of species.
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The authors of the new study carried out a series of experiments in order to test the theory, first developed in 2001 by two members of this team, that long pieces of identical double-stranded DNA could identify each other merely as a result of complementary patterns of electrical charges which they both carry. They wanted to verify that this could indeed occur without physical contact between the two molecules, or the facilitating presence of proteins.Previous studies have suggested that proteins are involved in the recognition process when it occurs between short strands of DNA which only have about 10 pairs of chemical bases. This new research shows that much longer strands of DNA with hundreds of pairs of chemical bases seem able to recognise each other as a whole without protein involvement. According to the theory, this recognition mechanism is stronger the longer the genes are.
The researchers observed the behaviour of fluorescently tagged DNA molecules in a pure solution. They found that DNA molecules with identical patterns of chemical bases were approximately twice as likely to gather together than DNA molecules with different sequences.
- Here
January 25th, 2008 at 1:38 am
That's awesome. And so useful. Even though it will require further testing to see if this attractive force also holds true for chromatin (DNA in complex with Histones).
Comment by hrun — January 25, 2008 @ 1:38 am
January 25th, 2008 at 2:31 am
Could this be an emergent property that is undetermined from the underlying chemistry? Or is it a property that was "unanticipated," showing a deeper puzzle that is beyond our present conception of chemistry? A molecular law of attraction?
Comment by Stephen — January 25, 2008 @ 2:31 am
January 25th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
This is straight chemistry. Nothing magical.
Comment by Bradford — January 25, 2008 @ 12:15 pm
January 25th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
There is an interesting issue here involving chemistry. When I took general chemistry, I was impressed with the mathematics, and I was impressed with the neat little package that was presented as a hard science; this was a presumed objectivity I anticipated. Then things started to change in organic chemistry, the neat little package became open-ended in the number of possibilities. This open quality extended into biochemistry, and my neat little package was no more. I can't help suspect that there is something open-ended in chemistry that is all too convenient as we discover new emergent properties that were unanticipated. The complex expressions seem to be beyond our neat little package, even like magic. It is like the presumed objective laws of chemistry are found necessary, but not sufficient, to explain the discovered complex expressions of life. This leaves open the possibility of teleology, in my view.
Comment by Stephen — January 25, 2008 @ 2:11 pm