I'm wondering how the fusion of two single cells could engender a well-developed organism. But, paradoxically our well-developed systems fail to combat many defects which could be prevented or managed indeed. I surmise whether compromised- or negative- regulation of epigenetic factors diminish cellular intelligence against combating molecular and cellular dysfunctions? Is there some non-therapeutic way to augment the cellular intelligence of all cells alike reproductive cells?
HI arun,
I wonder if cell can ever be intelligent !, however cells in any system of our body do tend to adapt very well to any intrinsic/extrinsic stimulus such as heat, shock, misfolded proteins, stess, strain etc., A cell is designed to adapt so in the near future we can probably make a cells to be more stress (physically) tolerant (hopefully, one day this will be achieved), but I am not sure if cellular intelligence ( for e.g production of hormone etc.,) can be accelerated/improved in a non-therapeutic way, as cells in our body ultimately are under the control of hypothalamus (mainly), and then the rest of the nervous system.
Also, note cells tends to lose its viability with age ( even progenitor and stem cells) due to irreversible process of ageing. Thus, molecular and cellular changes are imminent in an ageing human population like us ( interesting exception that defies cellular and molecular science on epigentic changes are some species of vertebrate and non-vertebrae organisms such as zebra fish, regenerating yeast, mollusc etc,).
Hope this will help you get some clarity on your thought(question).
Polly
I think overall that cells do a pretty good job with regards to the maintenance of their genomes. However the sheer number of the cells in a human (150 trillion?) just means it's a numbers game with regards to developing mistakes.
Recoding the mitochondrial genome and integrating it into the nuclear genome would put this under the proof-reading controls that the nuclear genome undergoes - might decrease some of the damage caused to mitochondria (and increase life span).
Also I think Greg Bear (?) wrote a book about intelligent cells (Blood music) which might interest you - although the cells in question in this work were man-made....
That is a very intiguing question and I don't have an answer to it but I am convinced that cells "learn" and that there is a way to improve their "intelligence" but in which way is a challenge. I think that epigenetic factors play a rule whose importance is still poorly understood and thoughs and emotions deeply influence the learning capacity of cells. Hopefully we can learn more in the future
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