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I wish I understood where all this stuff came from. When we talk about evolution we talk about random gene mutations and natural selection, but it doesn’t seem

I wish I understood where all this stuff came from. When we talk about evolution we talk about random gene mutations and natural selection, but it doesn’t seem like the machinery of the cell itself is described by DNA. How do cells themselves and all their internal machinery evolve? If all you had was a genome, could you really use it to engineer the cell required for it to go inside of?

openasocket 9y ago
> If all you had was a genome, could you really use it to engineer the cell required for it to go inside of? Definitively no if you consider multi-cellular organisms. And that's not just me being pedantic. Consider that every cell in your body, from the white blood cells to skin cells to neurons, has the same DNA. It's entirely non-genetic factors (epi-genetics like methylation of genes, but also hormones and existing intra-cellular structures) that leads to a neuron acting like a neuron instead of a liver cell.
dkural 9y ago
Luckily, someone did an experiment similar to this one. They wrote the genome (and ONLY the genome) of a unicellular organism synthetically. Then they've removed the genome of an existing cell of a different species. The've then inserted the genome they created from scratch. The genome worked and produced versions of everything it needed, and cell division happened etc. Everything was produced & worked. So - they bootstrapped that genome using machinery of the empty cell w/o the genome, but from that point on, the new genome produced everything needed for many other cells & itself. (Venter's papers creating synthetic life) In fact, following that, the same team refactor that genome to create a minimum viable genome, the MVP of genomes if you will, just to see how few genes you can get away with! Here's an article: http://www.nature.com/news/minimal-cell-raises-stakes-in-race-to-harness-synthetic-life-1.19633 http://www.nature.com/news/minimal-cell-raises-stakes-in-rac...
- tuxguy 9y ago
  Craig Venter's "playing God" experiment ?
visarga 9y ago
Think about this: your body is made of protein, each protein molecule is being created by copying a sequence of DNA. So your DNA has to do a LOT of copying, and for each copy it has to be cut open and put back together. In fact DNA is working hard every single day to keep us alive - it's not just sitting there until cell division. Even duplicating itself is no small feat - the total length of DNA in a human is 10B miles, from here to Pluto and back.
- robinduckett 9y ago
  It's 7.5 billion miles to pluto one way. Total length of all DNA strands in the human body: 744 million miles. So you're off a bit.
  - Retric 9y ago
    Rather than just stating random numbers: DNA in a cell is ~2 meters long (rolled up it's 6 microns across) http://www.sciencefocus.com/qa/how-long-your-dna http://www.sciencefocus.com/qa/how-long-your-dna * ~40 trillion cells (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/there-are-372-trillion-cells-in-your-body-4941473/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/there-are-372-tril...) ~= 8e13 meters ~= 5 * 10 ^ 10 miles or ~50 billion miles.
100ideas 9y ago
If all you had was unix kernel machine code, could you really use it to engineer the hardware required for it to go inside of?
- nsxwolf 9y ago
  That’s a good analogy. So it seems the cell evolves separately. But this doesn’t seem to be talked about as much, at least not amongst laypersons.
  - 100ideas 9y ago
    You might enjoy: Comparing genomes to computer operating systems in terms of the topology and evolution of their regulatory control networks. Yan KK, Fang G, Bhardwaj N, Alexander RP, Gerstein M. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2010 May 18;107(20):9186-91. doi:10.1073/pnas.0914771107. Epub 2010 May 3. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20439753 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20439753
    - 100ideas 9y ago
      Also: Istrail S, De-Leon SB, Davidson EH. The regulatory genome and the computer. Dev Biol. 2007 Oct 15;310(2):187-95. Epub 2007 Aug 10. Review. PubMed PMID: 17822690. Full-text: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012160607012547 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012160607... Abstract: > "The definitive feature of the many thousand cis-regulatory control modules in an animal genome is their information processing capability. These modules are “wired” together in large networks that control major processes such as development; they constitute “genomic computers.” Each control module receives multiple inputs in the form of the incident transcription factors which bind to them. The functions they execute upon these inputs can be reduced to basic AND, OR and NOT logic functions, which are also the unit logic functions of electronic computers. Here we consider the operating principles of the genomic computer, the product of evolution, in comparison to those of electronic computers. For example, in the genomic computer intra-machine communication occurs by means of diffusion (of transcription factors), while in electronic computers it occurs by electron transit along pre-organized wires. There follow fundamental differences in design principle in respect to the meaning of time, speed, multiplicity of processors, memory, robustness of computation and hardware and software. The genomic computer controls spatial gene expression in the development of the body plan, and its appearance in remote evolutionary time must be considered to have been a founding requirement for animal grade life."
bammytest 9y ago
If all you had was a genome, how could you use it to engineer the cell required for it to go inside of?

openasocket 9y ago

> If all you had was a genome, could you really use it to engineer the cell required for it to go inside of? Definitively no if you consider multi-cellular organisms. And that's not just me being pedantic. Consider that every cell in your body, from the white blood cells to skin cells to neurons, has the same DNA. It's entirely non-genetic factors (epi-genetics like methylation of genes, but also hormones and existing intra-cellular structures) that leads to a neuron acting like a neuron instead of a liver cell.

dkural 9y ago

Luckily, someone did an experiment similar to this one. They wrote the genome (and ONLY the genome) of a unicellular organism synthetically. Then they've removed the genome of an existing cell of a different species. The've then inserted the genome they created from scratch. The genome worked and produced versions of everything it needed, and cell division happened etc. Everything was produced & worked. So - they bootstrapped that genome using machinery of the empty cell w/o the genome, but from that point on, the new genome produced everything needed for many other cells & itself. (Venter's papers creating synthetic life) In fact, following that, the same team refactor that genome to create a minimum viable genome, the MVP of genomes if you will, just to see how few genes you can get away with! Here's an article: http://www.nature.com/news/minimal-cell-raises-stakes-in-race-to-harness-synthetic-life-1.19633 http://www.nature.com/news/minimal-cell-raises-stakes-in-rac...

tuxguy 9y ago
Craig Venter's "playing God" experiment ?

visarga 9y ago

Think about this: your body is made of protein, each protein molecule is being created by copying a sequence of DNA. So your DNA has to do a LOT of copying, and for each copy it has to be cut open and put back together. In fact DNA is working hard every single day to keep us alive - it's not just sitting there until cell division. Even duplicating itself is no small feat - the total length of DNA in a human is 10B miles, from here to Pluto and back.

robinduckett 9y ago
It's 7.5 billion miles to pluto one way. Total length of all DNA strands in the human body: 744 million miles. So you're off a bit.
- Retric 9y ago
  Rather than just stating random numbers: DNA in a cell is ~2 meters long (rolled up it's 6 microns across) http://www.sciencefocus.com/qa/how-long-your-dna http://www.sciencefocus.com/qa/how-long-your-dna * ~40 trillion cells (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/there-are-372-trillion-cells-in-your-body-4941473/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/there-are-372-tril...) ~= 8e13 meters ~= 5 * 10 ^ 10 miles or ~50 billion miles.

100ideas 9y ago

If all you had was unix kernel machine code, could you really use it to engineer the hardware required for it to go inside of?

nsxwolf 9y ago
That’s a good analogy. So it seems the cell evolves separately. But this doesn’t seem to be talked about as much, at least not amongst laypersons.
- 100ideas 9y ago
  You might enjoy: Comparing genomes to computer operating systems in terms of the topology and evolution of their regulatory control networks. Yan KK, Fang G, Bhardwaj N, Alexander RP, Gerstein M. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2010 May 18;107(20):9186-91. doi:10.1073/pnas.0914771107. Epub 2010 May 3. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20439753 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20439753
  - 100ideas 9y ago
    Also: Istrail S, De-Leon SB, Davidson EH. The regulatory genome and the computer. Dev Biol. 2007 Oct 15;310(2):187-95. Epub 2007 Aug 10. Review. PubMed PMID: 17822690. Full-text: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012160607012547 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012160607... Abstract: > "The definitive feature of the many thousand cis-regulatory control modules in an animal genome is their information processing capability. These modules are “wired” together in large networks that control major processes such as development; they constitute “genomic computers.” Each control module receives multiple inputs in the form of the incident transcription factors which bind to them. The functions they execute upon these inputs can be reduced to basic AND, OR and NOT logic functions, which are also the unit logic functions of electronic computers. Here we consider the operating principles of the genomic computer, the product of evolution, in comparison to those of electronic computers. For example, in the genomic computer intra-machine communication occurs by means of diffusion (of transcription factors), while in electronic computers it occurs by electron transit along pre-organized wires. There follow fundamental differences in design principle in respect to the meaning of time, speed, multiplicity of processors, memory, robustness of computation and hardware and software. The genomic computer controls spatial gene expression in the development of the body plan, and its appearance in remote evolutionary time must be considered to have been a founding requirement for animal grade life."

bammytest 9y ago

If all you had was a genome, how could you use it to engineer the cell required for it to go inside of?