About That Central Dogma

dogma and bias trump science in this world. You all know this. vh

I think when recounting the annihilation (so condign) of their central dogmas, it adds a certain piquancy if you can interject in your recounting of said annihilation, the words of Max Miller, a forties British comedian: 'No. Don't laugh...'. Apparently, there is a word for such deliberate inversions of meaning, but I can't remember it. Axel

OT: Electron cryomicroscopy observation of rotational states in a eukaryotic V-ATPase - May 2015 http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v521/n7551/full/nature14365.html#videos Meet the Souped-up Version of ATP Synthase - June 1, 2015 Excerpt: A new paper in Nature took the closest-ever look at the V-ATPase in yeast cells. Using cryo-electron microscopy, three researchers from Toronto were able to see in unprecedented detail the components of these molecular engines, and for the first time, deduce how they move and work together during operation. Here's how they compared V-ATPase to the more well-known F-type ATP synthase: "The eukaryotic V-ATPase is the most complex rotary ATPase: it has three peripheral stalks, a hetero-oligomeric proton-conducting proteolipid ring, several subunits not found in other rotary ATPases, and is regulated by reversible dissociation of its catalytic and proton-conducting regions." V-ATPase has two extra stators, looking something like flying buttresses holding the whole machine in place while it whirs along. The carousel-like V0 subunit, with its ten ring segments, "functions as a ten-step motor," they say. And because it must force protons into the organelle against a strong concentration gradient, the machine is hermetically sealed against leakage. The illustrations of V-ATPase in the paper are beautiful. The authors also included three video clips: one of the actual motors in situ, and two animations showing how the parts interact. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/06/meet_the_souped096471.html bornagain77

In the following podcast, Dr. Sternberg's emphasis is on ENCODE research, and how that research overturned the 'central' importance of the gene as a unit of inheritance. As well he reflects on how that loss of the term 'gene' as an accurate description in biology completely undermines the modern synthesis, (i.e. central dogma), of neo-Darwinism as a rational explanation for biology.

Podcast - Richard Sternberg PhD - On Human Origins: Is Our Genome Full of Junk DNA? Part 5 http://www.discovery.org/multimedia/audio/2014/11/on-human-origins-is-our-genome-full-of-junk-dna-pt-5/

A few more related notes on the loss of the term gene as a 'central' concept in the dogma of Darwinism:

DNA at 60: Still Much to Learn - April 28, 2013 Excerpt: "Sixty years on, the very definition of 'gene' is hotly debated. We do not know what most of our DNA does, nor how, or to what extent it governs traits. In other words, we do not fully understand how evolution works at the molecular level." http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=dna-at-60-still-much-to-learn Why the 'Gene' Concept Holds Back Evolutionary Thinking - James Shapiro - 11/30/2012 Excerpt: The Century of the Gene. In a 1948 Scientific American article, soon-to-be Nobel Laureate George Beadle wrote: "genes are the basic units of all living things.",,, This notion of the genome as a collection of discrete gene units prevailed when the neo-Darwinian "Modern Synthesis" emerged in the pre-DNA 1940s. Some prominent theorists even proposed that evolution could be defined simply as a change over time in the frequencies of different gene forms in a population.,,, The basic issue is that molecular genetics has made it impossible to provide a consistent, or even useful, definition of the term "gene." In March 2009, I attended a workshop at the Santa Fe Institute entitled "Complexity of the Gene Concept." Although we had a lot of smart people around the table, we failed as a group to agree on a clear meaning for the term. The modern concept of the genome has no basic units. It has literally become "systems all the way down." There are piecemeal coding sequences, expression signals, splicing signals, regulatory signals, epigenetic formatting signals, and many other "DNA elements" (to use the neutral ENCODE terminology) that participate in the multiple functions involved in genome expression, replication, transmission, repair and evolution.,,, Conventional thinkers may claim that molecular data only add details to a well-established evolutionary paradigm. But the diehard defenders of orthodoxy in evolutionary biology are grievously mistaken in their stubbornness. DNA and molecular genetics have brought us to a fundamentally new conceptual understanding of genomes, how they are organized and how they function. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-a-shapiro/why-the-gene-concept-hold_b_2207245.html Further Thoughts on the ENCODE/Junk DNA Debates - James Shapiro - Sept. 18, 2012 Excerpt: The ENCODE scientists have learned that it is wise to avoid interpreting the data from a fixed view of genome organization. That is why they speak of "DNA Elements" rather than genes or any other artificial categories. They tend to restrict themselves wisely to operationally defined features, such as transcription start sites (TSSs) and splice sites at exon-intron boundaries. Diogenes and like-minded people argue that we knew enough in the 1970s to understand the basic principles of genome organization. They do not accept that the flood of new information from genome sequencing and the kind of methodologies exemplified by the ENCODE project will fundamentally alter our genetic concepts. While they are certainly entitled to these opinions, I think we have to recognize that they are nothing more than that -- simply opinions that fly in the face of scientific history. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-a-shapiro/further-thoughts-on-the-e_b_1893984.html Landscape of transcription in human cells – Sept. 6, 2012 Excerpt: Here we report evidence that three-quarters of the human genome is capable of being transcribed, as well as observations about the range and levels of expression, localization, processing fates, regulatory regions and modifications of almost all currently annotated and thousands of previously unannotated RNAs. These observations, taken together, prompt a redefinition of the concept of a gene.,,, Isoform expression by a gene does not follow a minimalistic expression strategy, resulting in a tendency for genes to express many isoforms simultaneously, with a plateau at about 10–12 expressed isoforms per gene per cell line. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v489/n7414/full/nature11233.html Time to Redefine the Concept of a Gene? - Sept. 10, 2012 Excerpt: As detailed in my second post on alternative splicing, there is one human gene that codes for 576 different proteins, and there is one fruit fly gene that codes for 38,016 different proteins! While the fact that a single gene can code for so many proteins is truly astounding, we didn’t really know how prevalent alternative splicing is. Are there only a few genes that participate in it, or do most genes engage in it? The ENCODE data presented in reference 2 indicates that at least 75% of all genes participate in alternative splicing. They also indicate that the number of different proteins each gene makes varies significantly, with most genes producing somewhere between 2 and 25. Based on these results, it seems clear that the RNA transcripts are the real carriers of genetic information. This is why some members of the ENCODE team are arguing that an RNA transcript, not a gene, should be considered the fundamental unit of inheritance. http://networkedblogs.com/BYdo8 Duality in the human genome - Nov. 28, 2014 Excerpt: The gene, as we imagined it, exists only in exceptional cases. "We need to fundamentally rethink the view of genes that every schoolchild has learned since Gregor Mendel's time. Moreover, the conventional view of individual mutations is no longer adequate. Instead, we have to consider the two gene forms and their combination of variants,",,, "Our investigations at the protein level have shown that 96 percent of all genes have at least 5 to 20 different protein forms.,,, http://medicalxpress.com/news/2014-11-duality-human-genome.html Information killed the Central Dogma too - April 10, 2014 Abstract: The classical view of information flow within a cell, encoded by the famous central dogma of molecular biology, states that the instructions for producing amino acid chains are read from specific segments of DNA, just as computer instructions are read from a tape, transcribed to informationally equivalent RNA molecules, and finally executed by the cellular machinery responsible for synthesizing proteins. While this has always been an oversimplified model that did not account for a multitude of other processes occurring inside the cell, its limitations are today more dramatically apparent than ever. Ironically, in the same years in which researchers accomplished the unprecedented feat of decoding the complete genomes of higher-level organisms, it has become clear that the information stored in DNA is only a small portion of the total, and that the overall picture is much more complex than the one outlined by the dogma. The cell is, at its core, an information processing machine based on molecular technology, but the variety of types of information it handles, the ways in which they are represented, and the mechanisms that operate on them go far beyond the simple model provided by the dogma. https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/darwinism/information-killed-the-central-dogma-too/ "Physiology Is Rocking the Foundations of Evolutionary Biology": Another Peer-Reviewed Paper Takes Aim at Neo-Darwinism - Casey Luskin March 31, 2015 Excerpt: Noble doesn't mince words: "It is not only the standard 20th century views of molecular genetics that are in question. Evolutionary theory itself is already in a state of flux (Jablonka & Lamb, 2005; Noble, 2006, 2011; Beurton et al. 2008; Pigliucci & Muller, 2010; Gissis & Jablonka, 2011; Shapiro, 2011). In this article, I will show that all the central assumptions of the Modern Synthesis (often also called Neo-Darwinism) have been disproved." Noble then recounts those assumptions: (1) that "genetic change is random," (2) that "genetic change is gradual," (3) that "following genetic change, natural selection leads to particular gene variants (alleles) increasing in frequency within the population," and (4) that "inheritance of acquired characteristics is impossible." He then cites examples that refute each of those assumptions,,, He then proposes a new and radical model of biology called the "Integrative Synthesis," where genes don't run the show and all parts of an organism -- the genome, the cell, the body plan, everything -- is integrated. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/03/physiology_is_r094821.html

bornagain77

If it's wrong, it's not Dogma! I claim the trademark on that! Mung

Just dogma and wishful thinking. bb

Whoops. jstanley01