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On theuseofmetaphor tounderstand , explain , or rationalize redundantgenes inyeast
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Cooper, Stephen |
| Copyright Year | 2008 |
| Abstract | When ideas are encapsulated in proverbs or metaphors, sometimes there are contradictions. For example, consider the adages, ‘too many cooks spoil the broth’ and ‘many hands make light work.’ Each proverb has an element of truth, but one must know that it is not an absolute truth. Sometimes metaphors, like proverbs, are used to explain or rationalize experimental results. In immunology the ‘lock and key’ metaphor tried to explain how antibodies and antigens might combine due to complementary surfaces. The field of genetics is sometimes encapsulated by the apple image in the proverb ‘the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.’ The question then arises, does this metaphor really fit, or is there another metaphor that can apply. I write to comment on an explanation of a genetic analysis from the Boeke laboratory (Pan et al., 2006) on the identification of genes that appear to be redundant in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. It must be emphasized that I am not presenting a critique of the enormous amount of work and effort that went into the identification of genes that appear to be able to cover similar functions. I believe that the work of the Boeke laboratory is superb and deserving of note. But there are three points that must be raised, one regarding the general rationale of the result, one regarding the deeper implications of the result with regard to yeast cell studies, and a final one regarding the evolutionary implications of this result. Simply described, the Boeke group looked at cells with one gene missing that were still able to grow, and then looked in these cells for other genes that when mutated would lead to a lethal effect. Genes were identified that were only lethal in the absence of another gene. This work led to the identification of numerous gene groups that were proposed to give the cell a robust response to various stresses, in particular the mutation or destruction of a particular gene. If two independent genes can serve the same or similar functions, then the cell has a response to the introduction of lethal mutations to a specific gene. In an article about the result published in Microbe, the magazine of the American Society for Microbiology (Holzman, 2006), there is a description of the result and the presentation of a metaphor to rationalize or explain the result. After a short description of the basic findings, a metaphor is introduced to support the idea of redundancy in genes leading to survival even after some genes are eliminated by mutation. Thus, after noting that ‘Thousands of pairs of genes in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/75104/j.1567-1364.2008.00353.x.pdf?isAllowed=y&sequence=1 |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
