Prohaska Sonja J, Stadler Peter F
Santa Fe Institute, 1399 Hyde Park Rd., Santa Fe, NM, 87501, USA.
Theory Biosci. 2008 Aug;127(3):215-21. doi: 10.1007/s12064-008-0025-0. Epub 2008 Mar 5.
In order to describe a cell at molecular level, a notion of a "gene" is neither necessary nor helpful. It is sufficient to consider the molecules (i.e., chromosomes, transcripts, proteins) and their interactions to describe cellular processes. The downside of the resulting high resolution is that it becomes very tedious to address features on the organismal and phenotypic levels with a language based on molecular terms. Looking for the missing link between biological disciplines dealing with different levels of biological organization, we suggest to return to the original intent behind the term "gene". To this end, we propose to investigate whether a useful notion of "gene" can be constructed based on an underlying notion of function, and whether this can serve as the necessary link and embed the various distinct gene concepts of biological (sub)disciplines in a coherent theoretical framework. In reply to the Genon Theory recently put forward by Klaus Scherrer and Jürgen Jost in this journal, we shall discuss a general approach to assess a gene definition that should then be tested for its expressiveness and potential cross-disciplinary relevance.
为了在分子水平上描述一个细胞，“基因”的概念既不必要也无帮助。考虑分子（即染色体、转录本、蛋白质）及其相互作用就足以描述细胞过程。由此产生的高分辨率的缺点是，用基于分子术语的语言来描述生物体和表型水平上的特征变得非常繁琐。为了寻找处理不同生物组织层次的生物学学科之间缺失的联系，我们建议回归“基因”一词背后的原始意图。为此，我们提议研究是否可以基于潜在的功能概念构建一个有用的“基因”概念，以及这是否可以作为必要的联系，并将生物学（子）学科中各种不同的基因概念嵌入一个连贯的理论框架。针对克劳斯·舍雷尔和于尔根·约斯特最近在本杂志上提出的基因子理论，我们将讨论一种评估基因定义的一般方法，然后应测试其表达能力和潜在的跨学科相关性。
