Heng Henry H Q
Center for Molecular Medicine and Genetics, Wayne State University School of Medicine, Detroit, MI 48201, USA.
Bioessays. 2009 May;31(5):512-25. doi: 10.1002/bies.200800182.
Modern biology has been heavily influenced by the gene-centric concept. Paradoxically, this very concept--on which bioresearch is based--is challenged by the success of gene-based research in terms of explaining evolutionary theory. To overcome this major roadblock, it is essential to establish new theories, to not only solve the key puzzles presented by the gene-centric concept, but also to provide a conceptual framework that allows the field to grow. This paper discusses a number of paradoxes and illustrates how they can be addressed by the genome-centric concept in order to further resynthesize evolutionary theory. In particular, methodological breakthroughs that analyze genome evolution are discussed. The multiple interactions among different levels of a complex system provide the key to understanding the relationship between self-organization and natural selection. Darwinian natural selection applies to the biological level due to its unique genetic and heterogeneous features, but does not simply or directly apply to either the lower non-living level or higher intellectual society level. At the complex bio-system level, the genome context (the entire package of genes and their genomic physical relationship or genomic topology), not the individual genes, defines the system and serves as the principle selection platform for evolution.
现代生物学深受以基因为中心的概念影响。矛盾的是，这个作为生物研究基础的概念，却在基于基因的研究对进化理论的解释方面，受到了挑战。为克服这一主要障碍，建立新理论至关重要，这不仅要解决以基因为中心的概念所呈现的关键难题，还要提供一个能让该领域得以发展的概念框架。本文讨论了一些悖论，并阐述了以基因组为中心的概念如何解决这些悖论，从而进一步重新整合进化理论。特别讨论了分析基因组进化的方法突破。复杂系统不同层次之间的多重相互作用为理解自组织与自然选择之间的关系提供了关键。达尔文的自然选择因其独特的遗传和异质性特征适用于生物层面，但并不简单或直接适用于较低的非生物层面或较高的智能社会层面。在复杂生物系统层面，是基因组背景（基因及其基因组物理关系或基因组拓扑结构的整体组合）而非单个基因定义了系统，并作为进化的主要选择平台。
