The Biology of Belief - Bruce H. Lipton [26]
“But unless the human genome contains a lot of genes that are opaque to our computers, it is clear that we do not gain our undoubted complexity over worms and plants by using more genes.
“Understanding what does give us our complexity—our enormous behavioral repertoire, ability to produce conscious action, remarkable physical coordination, precisely tuned alterations in response to external variations of the environments, learning, memory, need I go on?—remains a challenge for the future.”
As Baltimore states, the results of the Human Genome Project force us to consider other ideas about how life is controlled. “Understanding what does give us our complexity … remains a challenge for the future.” The sky is falling.
In addition, the results of the Human Genome Project are forcing us to reconsider our genetic relationship with other organisms in the biosphere. We can no longer use genes to explain why humans are at the top of the evolutionary ladder. It turns out there is not much difference in the total number of genes found in humans and those found in primitive organisms. Let’s take a look at three of the most studied animal models in genetic research, a microscopic nematode roundworm known as Caenorhabditis elegans, the fruit fly, and the laboratory mouse.
The primitive Caenorhabditis worm serves as a perfect model for studying the role of genes in development and behavior. This rapidly growing and reproducing organism has a precisely patterned body comprised of exactly 969 cells and a simple brain of about 302 cells. Nonetheless it has a unique repertoire of behaviors and most importantly, it is amenable to genetic experimentation. The aenorhabditis genome consists of approximately 24,000 genes. (Blaxter 2003) The human body, comprised of over fifty trillion cells, contains only 1,500 more genes than the lowly, spineless, thousand-celled microscopic worm.
The fruit fly, another favored research subject, has 15,000 genes. (Blaxter 2003; Celniker, et al, 2002) So the profoundly more complicated fruit fly has 9,000 fewer genes than the more primitive Caenorhabditis worm. And when it comes to the question of mice and men, we might have to think more highly of them or less of ourselves; the results of parallel genome projects reveal that humans and rodents have roughly the same number of genes!
Cell Biology 101
In retrospect, scientists should have known that genes couldn’t provide the control of our lives. By definition, the brain is the organ responsible for controlling and coordinating the physiology and behavior of an organism. But is the nucleus truly the cell’s brain? If our assumption that the nucleus and its DNA-containing material is the “brain” of the cell, then removing the cell’s nucleus, a procedure called enucleation, should result in the immediate death of the cell.
And now, for the big experiment … (Maestro, a drumroll if you please).
The scientist drags our unwilling cell into the microscopic operating arena and straps it down. Using a micromanipulator, the scientist guides a needle-like micropipette into position above the cell. With a deft thrust of the manipulator, our investigator plunges the pipette deep into the cell’s cytoplasmic interior. By applying a little suction, the nucleus is drawn up into the pipette, and the pipette is withdrawn from the cell. Below the nucleus-engorged pipette lies our sacrificial cell—its “brain” torn out.
But wait! It’s still moving! My God … the cell is still alive!
The wound has closed and like a recovering surgical patient, the cell begins to slowly stagger about. Soon the cell is back on its feet (okay, its pseudopods), fleeing the microscope’s field with the hope that it will never see a doctor again.
Following enucleation, many cells can survive for up to two or more months without genes. Viable enucleated cells do not lie about like brain-dead lumps of cytoplasm on life-support systems. These cells actively ingest and metabolize food, maintain coordinated operation of their physiologic systems (respiration, digestion, excretion, motility,