Uncoiling Your DNA: What Cells Teach Us About Breaking Free from Stability
Stability might be stalling your progress
From hip-hop to medicine, the DNA is known to span almost all fields.
Popular works such as The Selfish Gene have introduced concepts on evolution that are presently common speak in different domains.
Businesses like to think of themselves as evolving. You either survive or die. Change or perish. These are all common concepts, simplified for the wide readership of interested minds.
But it skips the details.
For instance, DNA replication is well understood in single-celled organisms. Not the ones with membranes inside them (eukaryotes) like yeast and amoeba, but those without these sequestering membranes (prokaryotes). At a systemic level, the bug most responsible for most cases of traveller’s diarrhoea, E. Coli, has disrupted stomachs as much as it has changed our understanding of gut and microbe codependence. At a subcellular level, our understanding of molecular functions, patterns, and interactions is still far from clear.
We have yet to determine how our DNA replicates in intricate detail. We draw insight from our earliest ancestors. Breaking apart this complex molecule, I’ll highlight a process that excludes what we commonly know about genes. As a result, we’ll see how the structure that changed our understanding of living organisms can give rich insights into individual growth, investment, and success in whichever way you would want to define it.
Your DNA
I got hustle, though, ambition flow inside my DNA
Watson and Crick defined the molecule as a double-helix.
This structure is more stable than its cousin, the RNA. Its basic components create pairs resulting in the popular helical structure. Thus, the active parts are hidden from reactions.
It also lacks the hydroxyl group — the OH group. Hydroxyls tend to be reactive. The DNA only has hydrogen. The oxygen is absent, hence its name — deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA).
The DNA tends to be negatively charged. But it’s well folded into the dense packs of chromatin inside the nucleus and folded into coils around protein complexes called histones. Think of a string surrounding beads. The string is the complex molecule making the DNA. The beads are the proteins that have a role in stabilizing DNA even more.
Histones are positively charged. The DNA is negatively charged. Opposite charges attract. Thus, besides the stability of the double-helix, we get even more folded and tightly knit by the histone proteins due to the opposite charges.
That’s your DNA. It’s my DNA. And its stability is a good and bad thing. I’ll liken it to a stable job with a regular salary.
When I worked in the bank, on the 24th, of every month, our bank accounts reflected what our contracts stated. We called it F10. We had a salary. A stable salary.
Stability. It’s what we crave. It’s what the organism craves inside a universe in constant flux.
From an evolutionary point of view, evidence shows how likely RNA preceded the DNA. Organisms moved from highly reactive to stable but still reactive.
Question is — how will the DNA, highly folded as it is, open up to reactions? Wouldn’t its structure prevent the formation of cellular proteins? Wouldn’t it limit the rate of evolution? Wouldn’t our immune system be stuck if they weren’t allowed to form soldiers with every infection?
This is the bit we all need to learn from — DNA transactions.
Opening opportunities through DNA transactions
I transform like this, perform like this — Kendrick Lamar
Bits of DNA that code for proteins are called genes. These are the active parts. The complete set of genes in your body makes up the genome.
As highlighted earlier, the DNA is highly coiled, and its charge is somewhat controlled by the histones. It is stable.
Surrounding the DNA chamber is a cytoplasm in flux. Always changing. Always responding to the cellular signals. Always in need of adjustments especially if it’s a matter of life and death.
Sometimes, the DNA’s toolbox will be needed. Its supercoiled state would need unwinding. These are modulated by reactions that happen over and above the genes. Epi-, the prefix, typically means ‘after’ or ‘over’. Epigenetic means after the gene or over the gene.
Systems are in place to inherit components of the gene. These are called the genetic inheritance systems. Others are also set to inherit components of the epigene — the epigenetic inheritance systems.
One of them involves the histones. Histone modification can do several things -
It can reduce the positive charge.
It therefore reduces the degree of supercoiling of the DNA around it.
These two results open the DNA to factors it can interact with for processing. Once it was coiled. After the histone modification, they uncoil. They are open for business.
Uncoiling of the DNA exposes it to changes, transactions, new protein synthesis, and ultimately duplication. Without a change of structure, the DNA is functionally useless.
I started by mentioning the gene and the popular works. Few readers are unaware of the epigenetic components of a cell. Consider this analogy.
An expectant lady has reached the second stage of labour. The baby is coming out. Her pad is dark green and she doesn’t hear the regular kicking of the baby. She is a candidate for cesarean section. When she arrives at the hospital, she doesn’t find competent personnel. Neither does she find adequate facilities to ease the healthy delivery of the child.
The personnel and facilities are equivalent to the epigenetic processes inside the cell. In their absence, delivery might become difficult. Lack of these epigenetic processes will not open the DNA to transactions essential to the life of the cell.
Stability has its role. But complacent stability can kill a cell. It can reduce its opportunity to adapt to changes. All organisms need to survive. According to the theory of Organismal Selection, they need to avoid annihilation.
And the DNA cannot do it by itself. It needs the help of other molecules.
Sometimes you need a slap in the face to uncoil you from the stable state you were in. Say your salary delays. You get sick. You get sacked. You’re about to become a father. Or a mother. A deadline is fast approaching. Your child needs to pay school fees. Urgent surgery. ICU admission. Death in the family.
These are no different from the changes inside the cell. They prompt the cell to adapt and the DNA along with it. It needs other molecules to stir it into usefulness when it’s most needed. If it weren’t useful and sensitive to these changes, it would hardly have been preserved.
For billions of years, unicellular life dominated. It still does but man likes to think of themselves as superior. The unicellular dynamics, especially in bacteria, are such that useless parts are eliminated and only the useful ones preserved. If the DNA was not useful, it would have been extruded. It is useful as a stable store. Like that toolbox you keep in your car.
But if the toolbox is kept inside a safe, and the code is difficult to crack, of what use is the toolbox? Such a system needs a safecracker. These are the transactions DNA needs to make to open itself to opportunities for change.
These are the transactions you need to consider. Stability tends to coil us into complacency. The occasional shock is helpful for growth, adaptation, and evolution.
It’s what made the DNA royal. It was loyal to the cell. So the cell preserved it. The role of the DNA served the cell and the role of the cell served the DNA by protecting it. It’s a stable relationship, yet another feature discussed in the theory of Organismal Selection.
Kendrick echoes:
I got loyalty, got royalty inside my DNA
He’s not lying.
What I’m trying to say is…
I just win again, then, win again like Wimbledon I serve
We both do because our DNAs are not locked up.
For anyone who has taken my course on improving networks, I show how you can improve your surface area of luck by attending parties.
Parties are an opportunity to uncoil and meet new people. These are centres where transactions can happen.
The old saying, opportunity favours the bold is not a vain quote.
You have to uncoil, interact with others then see what happens.
It’s been going on for billions of years.
It will continue for a billion more.
This song inspired some of the lines used in this article. Source — YouTube