Why are macromolecular machines more complex than needed?
Many of the cell’s macromolecular machines appear gratuitously complex, comprising more components than their basic functions seem to demand. How can we make sense of this complexity in the light of evolution? Seemingly gratuitous complexity is illustrated by RNA processing systems such as splicing and editing. The most complicated macromolecular machine in the cell may be the eukaryotic spliceosome, which removes non-coding regions (introns) from precursor messenger RNA (mRNA) in a process called splicing. The spliceosome uses five small nuclear RNAs and hundreds of proteins to do the same job that some catalytic introns (called ribozymes) can do alone.
I suspect that the addition of the complexity HAS function, which just has not been figured out yet.
Michael W. Gray: Irremediable Complexity? 12 NOVEMBER 2010 https://sci-hub.wf/10.1126/science.1198594
Many of the cell’s macromolecular machines appear gratuitously complex, comprising more components than their basic functions seem to demand. How can we make sense of this complexity in the light of evolution? Seemingly gratuitous complexity is illustrated by RNA processing systems such as splicing and editing. The most complicated macromolecular machine in the cell may be the eukaryotic spliceosome, which removes non-coding regions (introns) from precursor messenger RNA (mRNA) in a process called splicing. The spliceosome uses five small nuclear RNAs and hundreds of proteins to do the same job that some catalytic introns (called ribozymes) can do alone.
I suspect that the addition of the complexity HAS function, which just has not been figured out yet.
Michael W. Gray: Irremediable Complexity? 12 NOVEMBER 2010 https://sci-hub.wf/10.1126/science.1198594
