Genes do not exist independently in a vaccum, in DB or in biology. The structure of the genome - that it consists of genes, that those genes have an order and proximity, that some genes are adjacent while others are far apart - that structure matters.
An end statement can spontatiously mutate into the middle of a genome. Which genes just happen to come after it will no longer get expressed. The postion of genes in the genome matters.
Mutations can duplicate or delete sequences of base pairs. Adjacent genes or sections there of can get moved, copied or deleted together. A genes' environment includes other genes. Gene locality relative to other genes in the genome matters.
I think it is important in the DB genome structure to allow for small genotypic mutations to have the potential to have a large phenotypic impact. Today, we have the ability for a single point mutation to cause a premature End to genome execution, a "clipping" of all the genes that might follow the End base pair sequence. What we don't have is an equivalent "Begin" base pair sequence.
If we created a Begin base pair and modifed the DNA execution logic appropriately, the result would esentially be Introns and Exons. Exons are coding portions of a genome. The genes in Exons get expressed I.e. they get executed. Introns are non-coding sequences, the so-called 'Junk DNA'. Introns don't get expressed.
Junk DNA is important. Genes get duplicated into Junk DNA without harm to the resulting phenotype since the copy does not get expressed. They get mutated over time without getting expressed. Then down the road, a sudden mutation can turn on that gene or a highly modified version originally descended from a copy of a working gene, but mutated over time so it now does something quite different - or even a whole sequence of genes resulting in large and dramatic phenotypic changes due to small genotype changes such as the deletion of an End base pair sequence.
By allowing for multiple Begin and End base pair sequences in a DB genome, we would be allowing for multiple independent Exons sections of a genome - those between Begin and End base pairs. They would be seperated by non-coding Intron regions - those between End and Begin base pairs. Simple mutations could have dramatic impact.
This concept of contigious genome sections is important. I think we will need to build upon it in several ways: using it as a unit for one level of mutation probability encoding within the genome itself and perhaps tying in copy and deletion mutation probability so that they are more likely to begin and end on exon or intron boundaries.
Comments?
