James A. Shapiro
University of Chicago, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Cummings Life Sciences
Center, 920 E. 58th Street, Chicago, IL 60637-4931, USA (Phone: 773-702-1625; Fax: 773-702-0439;
E-mail: jsha@midway.uchicago.edu)
Accepted 18 January 2000
Key words: evolutionary feedback, natural genetic engineering, genomic systems, genome-wide transposition,
transcriptional regulatory circuits
Abstract
Cells are capable of sophisticated information processing. Cellular signal transduction networks serve to compute
data from multiple inputs and make decisions about cellular behavior. Genomes are organized like integrated
computer programs as systems of routines and subroutines, not as a collection of independent genetic ‘units’.
DNA sequences which do not code for protein structure determine the system architecture of the genome. Re-petititve
DNA elements serve as tags to mark and integrate different protein coding sequences into coordinately
functioning groups, to build up systems for genome replication and distribution to daughter cells, and to organize
chromatin. Genomes can be reorganized through the action of cellular systems for cutting, splicing and rearranging
DNA molecules. Natural genetic engineering systems (including transposable elements) are capable of acting
genome-wide and not just one site at a time. Transposable elements are subject to regulation by cellular signal
transduction/computing networks. This regulation acts on both the timing and extent of DNA rearrangements and
(in a few documented cases so far) on the location of changes in the genomes. By connecting transcriptional
regulatory circuits to the action of natural genetic engineering systems, there is a plausible molecular basis for
coordinated changes in the genome subject to biologically meaningful feedback.
Reading the abstract you provided has left me in slack-jawed astonishment at what science has achieved in my lifetime alone.
Bravo, James A. Shapiro ... and all the other Shapiros, too.
Joan ... (Sorry. This one's just a newspaper report).
and, of course, James A.!