Subcellular Systems - Molecular Theory of the Living Cell - page 293

Pianist

Sheet Music Audio Music

Molecular Machines

Watson-Crick Form
(e.g., Nucleotide
sequences)

Prigoginian Form
(e.g., Concentration
gradients and waves)

driven by Conformons

Fig. 11.3 The hypothesis that there are two forms of genes in the cell in analogy to music - (1) the
Watson-Crick form analogous to sheet music and (2) the Prigoginian form analogous to audio
music . The examples of the former include static nucleotide sequences of DNA and RNA, while
the examples of the latter include the concentration gradients or waves of diffusible molecules
such as RNA and mechanical deformations of biopolymers such as SIDDs in supercoiled DNA
duplexes (see Sect. 8.3 )

The history of the concept of the gene is at least one and a half centuries old (see
Table 11.1 ) and yet its definition is still in flux. The concept of a gene as a heritable
trait was established through the experiments with pea plants performed by the
Austrian monk G. Mendel in the mid-nineteenth century. The term “gene” itself
was coined by W. Johannsen in 1909 in analogy to the term “pangene” used by
Darwin in formulating his ill-fated pangenesis hypothesis which Johannsen
opposed (see Table 11.1 ). The modern idea of a gene as a sequence of nucleotides
in DNA was firmly established by three main discoveries: (a) Avery, MacLeod, and
McCarthy found that DNA is the carrier of genetic information, (b) Watson and
Crick discovered that DNA is a double helix formed from two complementary
strands of deoxyribonucleic acid intertwining with each other, and (c) the discovery
by Crick, Brenner, Watts-Tobin, Nirenberg, Matthaei, and Khorana that triplets of
nucleotides code for an amino acid. These and other historical facts about the
evolution of the gene concept have been reviewed by Gerstein et al. (2007).
Unlike Gerstein et al. (2007), the history of the gene concept reviewed in
Table 11.1 includes several additional facts that have to do with the energetic (E)
aspect of the gene in addition to its information (I) aspect, as indicated by the last
two columns labeled I and E. The decision to list both these aspects of the gene is
based on the fundamental postulate that a complete understanding of the nature of
the gene on the molecular and cellular levels is impossible without taking into
account both the informational and energetic aspects of the genetic processes in
line with the gnergy theory of self-organization (Sects. 2.3.2 and 4.13 ).
The idea that there must exist some material entity that is responsible for
transmitting physical characteristics from one generation to the next (the process
known as inheritance ) must have occurred to the human mind from prehistoric
times. This inference is based on the well-known facts that (1) children resemble
their parents in appearance and (2) father's sperm must enter mother's womb for
conception to occur. It would not have taken ancient humans too long to realize the
next logical conclusion that the material entity mediating the transfer of traits from
parents to offspring must be contributed not only by father's sperm but also by some
material entity from mother later identified as eggs. Thus the concept of heritable
traits must have been established in the human mind long before the Austrian