There’s No Such Thing as a ‘Simple’ Organism

[n2doc]

By Brandon Keim November 30, 2009



What may be the most thorough study ever of a single organism has produced a beta code for life’s essential subroutines, and shown that even the simplest creatures are more complex than scientists suspected.

The analysis combined information about gene regulation, protein production and cell structure in Mycoplasma pneumoniae, one of the simplest self-sustaining microbes.

It’s far closer to a “blueprint” than a mere genome readout, and reveals processes “that are much more subtle and intricate than were previously considered possible in bacteria,” wrote University of Arizona biologists Howard Ochman and Rahul Raghavan in a commentary accompanying the findings, which were published last Thursday in Science.

M. pneumoniae has just one-fifth as many genes as E. coli, the traditional single-cell model organism. That makes it an ideal target for systems biologists who want to understand how cells function. To them, genome scans are just a first step. They don’t explain when or why genes are turned on and off, or how different genes interact at different times, or how cellular “machines” use proteins produced by gene instructions.

more:

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/11/basics-of-life/

[Birthmark]

1. Well, they've had billions of years in which to evolve.

There's no reason they should be simple, imo.

[Joe Chi Minh]

2. Ah, yes, of course. It just takes time.