Deepali Koturkar - 20081054

Review: THE SELFISH GENE

Richard Dawking shares a very different and uncommon view towards evolution of life.
Elaborating on his title he says that; the unit that is actually selected against natural selection,
becomes selfish, and that selfish unit happens to be ‘Gene’. So he named the book as “Selfish
Gene”. Though the author only says that ‘immortality of genetic information is the central theme
of the book. Altruism exists at higher levels. All individuals are just carriers of these genes.
Genes provide them their structure, functions and their identity. Individual organisms behave
altruistically for the good of genes. Saying this, author establishes a relation between gene
selfishness and altruism of individuals.
Moreover, author calls all individuals belonging to all species as survival machines which
work in independent ways but for the same kind of replicator molecule- DNA. Going through
many random events of formation of replicator molecules, genes have evolved from a primordial
soup to sexes and all multicellular complicated carrier systems. These replicator molecules have
evolved highly efficient ways to transfer and conserve themselves in the species through vertical
gene transfer. These molecules replicate themselves and get passed on to the next generation
after reproduction event. In asexual type of reproduction the exact copy of replicator molecule
(DNA) is passed on to the next generation; to next survival machine, but in sexually reproducing
organisms, the genetic information of two parents are recombined and the progeny has genetic
information almost equally combined from both parents. The sexual reproduction allows the
mixing and shuffling of genes; and author tells us that “individual body is just a vehicle for a
short lived combination of genes”. Though the combinations of genes is short lived but the genes
themselves are potentially very long lived almost immortal. Shorter the genetic unit longer the
generations it is likely to pass because then it is less likely to be altered by crossing over. The
coded massage in DNA in form of nucleotides is then translated into proteins, which majorly
governs the body of an organism. Whatever an individual do in his life, what knowledge he
gains, what skills he learns ae never inherited, his genetic information remain unaltered, and is
passes on as it is.
The ways through which changes can occur at genetic level of an organism are mutations and
horizontal gene transfer (new and controversial term to be used so far). But the effects are mostly
not visible at an individual’s level. It takes generations to appear prominently in any species.
Evolutionary mutations are inherited to next generations. Mutations can also cause deletion of
some genetic information, so the coming generations can lack some of the functions which were
there previously. Changes in DNA occur due to mutation cause error in protein sequence,
creating partially or completely nonfunctional proteins. Mutation can lead to genetic disorders in
organisms. If mutation occurs in germ cells, it is inherited to next generations as well and lead to
hereditary disorders. Studies in yeast have shown that only 7% of mutations that are not in genes
are harmful.
In some cases mutations come out to be beneficial for species. The mutated genes have
stronger survival potential than those of wild type gene and are selected against natural selection.
For example, sickle cell disease, in this disease body produces abnormal hemoglobin protein in
red blood cells. ‘one third of all indigenous inhabitants of sub sharan Africa carry the gene,
because in area where malaria is common, there is a survival value in carrying only a single
sickle gene( trait).Those organisms with only one of the two alleles of sickle cell disease are
more resistant to malaria, since the infestation of the malaria plasmodium is halted by the
sickling of the cells which it infects.’
Another way of altering genetic information, the DNA molecule is the horizontal gene
transfer. Horizontal gene transfer is a process in which organism without being the offspring of
that organism. In genetics, most of the research studies are performed on vertical gene transfer,
but there is a growing awareness that horizontal gene transfer is a highly significant
phenomenon. And it is also noticed that in single celled organisms it is a dominant form of
genetic transfer.
Horizontal gene transfer was first described in japan in 1959 publication which demonstrated
the transfer of antibiotic resistance among different species of bacteria. Also 1999 onwards
studies of genes and genomes have shown that considerable horizontal gene transfer has
occurred in prokaryotes. It takes place in unicellular eukaryotes as well. Moreover there are
evidences suggesting that horizontal gene transfer is an important evolutionary mechanism in
protest evolution. HGT is a fairly common phenomenon in certain unicellular eukaryotes, but
however role of HGT in multicellular eukaryotes still remain unclear.
Mostly in bacterial species natural genetic transformation is the essential mechanism for the
attainment of the genetic plasticity. Bacterial species have evolved to adapt to new environments,
mostly by acquisition of new genes through horizontal gene transfer rather than the altering the
gene functions by numerous point mutations. As bacterial species are unable to reproduce
sexually, they have acquired several mechanisms like transformation, conjugation, transduction
by which they could exchange genetic material.
• Transformation: it is the process in which uptake of naked DNA is a mode of horizontal
gene transfer that can mediate the exchange of short DNA fragments. This process is
more common in naturally transformable bacteria.
• Conjugation: in this process transfer of DNA is mediated by conjugal plasmids or
conjugal transposons (the jumping genes). It requires cell to cell contact, but this can take
place within distantly related bacteria or bacteria and other eukaryotic cells this can
transfer long fragments of DNA.
• Transduction: transfer of DNA takes places by phage but requires cell surface receptors
for phage binding on both donor and recipient, thus it is generally limit to closely relate
bacterial species. Also here length of the DNA fragment transferred is limited by size of
phage head.
These above methods of horizontal gene transfer can introduce sequence of DNA that can
share some kind of homology with the DNA of recipient cell. If there exits homologous
sequences shared between donor DNA and recipient chromosome, the donor DNA fragment can
be stably incorporated with recipient chromosome by homologous recombination.
The Author believes that the gain of new functions are acquiring completely new phenotype
need not come from ancestral state. It can be something very new for the species and picked up
by chance. It seems highly improbable to think about and to believe on but such phenomenon of
horizontal gene transfer to occur rarely in a evolutional tree.
In selfish gene author makes an effort to impress upon our mind that genes are the
ultimate references for phenotype but there exits some cases which do not support this argument
for example, in some insects the female mate with more than one mate and store there sperms in
spermathacae in separate sacs for each male. Afterwards female quantifies the sperms based
upon some mechanism which is still unclear and fertilize here eggs with those sperms
selectively. This phenomenon cannot be explained just by genetic argument but requires many
other factors like learning etc.
 Overall selfish genes by Richard Dawkins is an unusual but an amazing introduction to
evolution of life and ultimately to genes. It puts forward a complete new view at looking at life.