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19/11/10 04:10 Filed in: GenomeWeb Daily Scan
Submitted by S. Pelech - Kinexus on Fri, 11/19/2010 - 04:10.
As pointed out in this Technology Review's Physics ArXiv blog, Dr. Fritz's work is entirely theoretical and no evidence is available for whether conditional memory circuits as proposed actually exist in real genetic networks? Apparently, proteins would have to be equally important components in memory circuits.
For the hypothetic genetic networks to be able to work for permitting memory in eukaryotes, it appears to require the production of signalling proteins that regulate gene expression. These are most typically transcription factors and other DNA binding proteins, but would also have to include intermediary proteins such as protein kinases. Transcription factors need to be phosphorylated to become full functional, so involvement of a protein kinase network in parallel would be required. Protein phosphorylation appears to be transient, although it is likely to be the main way that short term memory is stored in neurons. The stimulation of formation of synaptic connections between neurons, which requires gene expression, appears to underlie long term memory.
It seems highly improbable that the state of activation of a protein kinase or transcription factor could be maintained over several cell generations, especially since the process of cell division itself has profound effects on protein expression and phosphorylation. In non-dividing cells such as neurons and muscle cells, it is possible that certain phosphorylation patterns could be more stable. However, there is no need to invoke the requirement of gene transcription for production of short term memory.
Link to the original blog post.
As pointed out in this Technology Review's Physics ArXiv blog, Dr. Fritz's work is entirely theoretical and no evidence is available for whether conditional memory circuits as proposed actually exist in real genetic networks? Apparently, proteins would have to be equally important components in memory circuits.
For the hypothetic genetic networks to be able to work for permitting memory in eukaryotes, it appears to require the production of signalling proteins that regulate gene expression. These are most typically transcription factors and other DNA binding proteins, but would also have to include intermediary proteins such as protein kinases. Transcription factors need to be phosphorylated to become full functional, so involvement of a protein kinase network in parallel would be required. Protein phosphorylation appears to be transient, although it is likely to be the main way that short term memory is stored in neurons. The stimulation of formation of synaptic connections between neurons, which requires gene expression, appears to underlie long term memory.
It seems highly improbable that the state of activation of a protein kinase or transcription factor could be maintained over several cell generations, especially since the process of cell division itself has profound effects on protein expression and phosphorylation. In non-dividing cells such as neurons and muscle cells, it is possible that certain phosphorylation patterns could be more stable. However, there is no need to invoke the requirement of gene transcription for production of short term memory.
Link to the original blog post.