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November 13, 2006
Cell Division and Freeway Construction
The following from a recent MIT lecture by Michael Yaffe on computational approaches to cancer is fascinating:If the distance between each DNA base pair were one foot apart, then each time a cell divided, it would have to copy 568 thousand miles of DNA. This ... is enough to go around the circumference of the earth more than 22 times. What’s more, the cell has to copy its DNA with no errors. “I don’t know (if) civil engineers ... could make 10 miles of road without making single error,” says Yaffe.
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The DNA replication system makes errors. It makes lots of them. The reason that the errors don't persist is because DNA replication is a parallel process with lots of players - including numerous error correction systems. DNA replication is a highly redundant and resource-intensive process. If roadwork were given similar resources, I'm sure it would also exhibit less errors. But roadwork errors don't cause cancer.
What were Yaffe's conclusions?