The Biology of Belief - Bruce H. Lipton [27]
Unsurprisingly, enucleation is not without side effects. Without their genes, cells are not able to divide, nor are they able to reproduce any protein parts they lose through the normal wear and tear of the cytoplasm. The inability to replace defective cytoplasmic proteins contributes to mechanical dysfunctions that ultimately result in the death of the cell.
Our experiment was designed to test the idea that the nucleus is the “brain” of the cell. If the cell had died immediately following enucleation, the observations would have at least supported that belief. However, the results are unambiguous: enucleated cells still exhibit complex, coordinated, life-sustaining behaviors, which imply that the cell’s “brain” is still intact and functioning.
The fact that enucleated cells retain their biological functions in the absence of genes is by no means a new discovery. Over a hundred years ago, classical embryologists routinely removed the nuclei from dividing egg cells and showed that a single, enucleated egg cell was able to develop as far as the blastula, an embryonic stage consisting of forty or more cells. Today, enucleated cells are used for industrial purposes as living “feeder” layers in cell cultures designed for virus vaccine production.
If the nucleus and its genes are not the cell’s brain, then what exactly is DNA’s contribution to cellular life? Enucleated cells die, not because they have lost their brain but because they have lost their reproductive capabilities. Without the ability to reproduce their parts, enucleated cells cannot replace failed protein building blocks, nor replicate themselves. So the nucleus is not the brain of the cell—the nucleus is the cell’s gonad! Confusing the gonad with the brain is an understandable error because science has always been and still is a patriarchal endeavor. Males have often been accused of thinking with their gonads, so it’s not entirely surprising that science has inadvertently confused the nucleus with the cell’s brain!
Epigenetics: The New Science of Self-Empowerment
Genes-as-destiny theorists have obviously ignored hundred-year old science about enucleated cells, but they cannot ignore new research that undermines their belief in genetic determinism. While the Human Genome Project was making headlines, a group of scientists were inaugurating a new, revolutionary field in biology called epigenetics. The science of epigenetics, which literally means “control above genetics,” profoundly changes our understanding of how life is controlled. (Pray 2004; Silverman 2004) In the last decade, epigenetic research has established that DNA blueprints passed down through genes are not set in concrete at birth. Genes are not destiny! Environmental influences, including nutrition, stress, and emotions, can modify those genes without changing their basic blueprint. And those modifications, epigeneticists have discovered, can be passed on to future generations as surely as DNA blueprints are passed on via the double helix. (Reik and Walter 2001; Surani 2001)
There is no doubt that epigenetic discoveries have lagged behind genetic discoveries. Since the late 1940s, biologists have been isolating DNA from the cell’s nucleus in order to study genetic mechanisms. In the process they extract the nucleus from the cell, break open its enveloping membrane, and remove the chromosomal contents, half of which is made up of DNA and half of which is made up of regulatory proteins. In their zeal to study DNA, most scientists threw away the proteins, which we now know is the equivalent of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Epige-neticists are bringing back the baby, by studying the chromosome’s proteins, and those proteins are turning out to play as crucial a role in heredity as DNA.
In the chromosome, the DNA forms the core, and the proteins cover the DNA like a sleeve. When the genes are covered, their information cannot