still no clear and exact definition of the notion of the gene and its real
dimensions. Most probably we shall be encountering the situation with the
atom in chemistry, which only before several decades was considered the
smallest and indivisible unit. There are enough data to think that today’s
notion of the gene is rather different from the real one and in the oncoming
XXI century it will be called “classical”.
In 1935 the well-known physicist and biologist Max Delbrück has
expressed his view in his theoretical report “On the nature of gene mutation
and gene structure” that if in physics all changes can be in principle
reduced to measurements of place and time, the basic notion of genetics —
the difference in feature — can hardly be sensibly expressed in absolute
units (cited by Stent, 1974). Another physicist E. Schrödinger (1945) has
expressed the thought that independently of its chemical nature the gene
should be exceptionally small, no more than several atoms. Otherwise the
great number of genes that are thought to be needed for every organism
could not have been held in the cell nucleus.
The prevalent opinion is that genome organization and its basic
structural and functional unit for heredity — the gene, are inadequately
clarified. This can be considered to be the fourth “white spot” in biology,
genetics respectively. In my opinion it is possible for the genes to prove
undefined strictly genetic structures arranged as “beads” along the DNA
molecule, but biochemical prerequisites derived from the combination of
high-molecular organic compounds (mainly proteins, nucleic acids and
specific enzymes) in different portions of the chromosomes, which as a
result of their interaction in the process of development to form the
hereditary features, qualities and properties of living organisms. Only in
this way can the stunning variety of disappeared and viable species be
explained together with the wide range of overlapping colours of living
nature, as well as the unceasing anomalies which would not have
happened if the genes were in reality strictly defined, programmed and
unchangeable structures.
If this hypothesis is confirmed, then it should be accepted that the
processes of heredity are more biochemical than genetic ones. It is quite
improbable for the genetic information in DNA to be kept in an “academician”
state and not to take part in the life processes, executing only control functions
as postulated by the followers of the Central dogma in biology (see Alberts et
al., 1986). Such a role is not typical of living matter, which is organized and
developed on the basis of real mutual relationships and interactions.