From: Michael M. Butler (mmb@spies.com)
Date: Fri Jun 06 2003 - 14:40:24 MDT
On Fri, 6 Jun 2003 07:35:59 -0700 (PDT), Robert J. Bradbury
<bradbury@aeiveos.com> wrote:
> There are a few genes, dystrophin is one that comes to mind,
> involved in physical structures that one may not require in
> simple organisms, that are I believe very large.
Yes, I did some study after making the acquaintance of a person with what's
probably advanced Duchenne or Becker MD (mscular dystrophy), and the
dystrophin molecule is gigantic--400 Kd, with at least three distinct
regions: a part that binds actinin, a part that seems to serve as a
cytoskeleton scaffolding, and a third part called the C-terminal domain,
which when truncated causes clinical symptoms. This suggests that a
smaller-genomic approach to repair or replace the C-terminal domain might
help to tread MD. The last I heard, however, nobody knows what dystrophin
actually "does when it's at home."
Hard to know how many more of those sorts of things there are in here, or
which of them will decompose neatly.
> Most of the complexity seems to be coming from alternate splicing.
> A report I recently read suggested that in higher organisms
> (e.g. humans) there may be an average of 3 proteins coming
> from each gene. That is a *lot* considering that for many
> genes probably only one protein is produced. It is going
> to make working out the proteomics a bear of a problem.
"I am only an egg." By "alternate splicing", do you mean anything like RNA
autoenzymatic activity?
Yes, the dated but heroic "Cartoon History of Genetics" by Larry Gonick
needs some serious updating. "One Gene, One Protein" was a kind of
Copernican insight, but is turning out to be too simple a story.
MMB
-- I am not here to have an argument. I am here as part of a civilization. Sometimes I forget.
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