Mechanics of the Cell Overcoming a Fear of Equations

explain the C-value paradox—the observation that ge-It has now become clear that lateral DNA transfer has nome size does not necessarily correlate with organism played and continues to play a major role in shaping complexity (for example, the human genome is 30 times genomes. Lateral DNA Transfer constitutes a great effort bigger than that of baker's yeast, yet 20 times smaller to put under one umbrella a variety of topics pertaining than the genome of certain amoebas). to genome evolution. Moreover, it provides a molecular Numerous biological phenomena, including the de-genetic framework to understand the current technolog-velopment of tumors in animals and plants, the spread ical applications of gene transfer including gene therapy, of antibiotic resistance determinants in bacteria, and crop improvement, and control of insect populations. the abnormalities resulting from certain types of crosses Most readers will find plenty of new information in in insects, result from lateral DNA transfer. Also referred Lateral DNA Transfer. For example, they will learn that to as horizontal gene transfer, lateral DNA transfer is the estimated frequency of gene transfer between or-the movement of DNA from one organism to another in ganisms in the oceans is twenty billion times per second. which it becomes stably incorporated. The widespread On the other hand, many of the topics discussed by nature of lateral DNA transfer and the realization that Bushman might not be new for other readers. Yet, these DNA can move from one location to another within an topics are presented with a different spin that makes organism lead to the view that genomes are in a state us feel like a molecular biologist version of the bourgeois of flux. However, this view was not readily accepted as gentleman Monsieur Jordan: that we have been investi-Barbara McClintock was not awarded the Nobel Prize gating/reading about/exploring lateral DNA transfer and for her discovery of " mobile genetic elements " in plants we did not even know it. until 1983, a belated recognition of work she had conducted in the 1940s which was fully appreciated only Eduardo A. Groisman when transposable elements were rediscovered in bac-to read Frederic Bushman's marvelous new book, Lateral DNA Transfer: Mechanisms and Consequences. Bushman uses less than 450 pages to teach us not Mechanics of the Cell only about the molecular bases for many of the genetic Edited by David Boal discoveries of the 1980s and 1990s, but also about the …