Disassembling life into a series of biochemical reactions is the mainstream method for
understanding the process of life today. The chemical reaction itself is a probabilistic event,
and the chemical reaction
rate itself is the probability of the chemical reaction. For a general chemical reaction system,
what we typically see is a system of 10 to the 23rd power molecules. In such a system, it is
like throwing dice
many many times, and randomness becomes less important. However, when we think of cells as tiny
chemical reaction systems, does randomness appear? If so, why are the various activities and
phenomena of life so “determined” such that all single-celled, multi-cellular
organisms can grow, reproduce, metabolize, and respond to the environment in a fixed pattern?
The research on the randomness of this biological system, especially at the molecular
level, is a branch of "systems biology", a relatively new and young field in
the world since 2000. Here I will introduce the
relevant developments in this field, and why this field is in great need of
interdisciplinary expertises. I will also talk about our collaboration with the team
of Professor Shu-Hsing Wu from the Institute of
Microorganisms. We found that the "upstream open reading frame" that can regulate
gene expression, a sequence upstream of the mRNA translation region, can effectively
reduce the uncertainty of the gene
expression, so that the expression level of the gene tends to be consistent in different
cells. When we mutated the upstream open reading frame of the circadian clock gene
TOC-1, the oscillation of the
circadian clock of cells would lose its precision.
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