Gene switches affect different genes rather than existing as modular individual regulators.

 Groundbreaking research performed in Drosophila specimen at the university of Bonn and LMU Munich discovered that there is a certain amount of overlap in the way that gene switches work. Since most of a DNA strand are not the sequences that actually lead to the production of proteins, most of the DNA in a cell is conformed of the sequences that regulate the use and expression level of these genes. The research presented basically indicates that there is overlap between the gene sequences that act as switches that affect different genes that directly produce proteins! This has evolutionary implications by implying that the evolution of a specific gene switch can, and will affect multiple genes at once, creating even more variation. This is particularly important for some species in embryonic development, as cells start out as pluripotent and specialize through development. These developments however, happen out of gene expression, and understanding the way that gene expression functions can vary can lead to many different outcomes of the pluripotency.

I find this interesting and groundbreaking, though I will admit I cannot fully grasp it or get my head around it. I think the idea that we have the same gene activators for different gene expressions scares me more than it impresses me. Although it would not happen that way, what if multiple sequences that I need at the same time decide to not continue functioning and a different thing in my cells that needs to happen just stops? That’s just taking microbiology to a macro level though. Definitely some extremely interesting work.

https://phys.org/news/2024-10-insight-gene-naive-state-pluripotent.html#google_vignette

https://phys.org/news/2024-11-gene-results-extensive-regions-dna.html