Conventional molecular biology presents the cell as a factory: DNA is the archive ofblueprints, RNA is the messenger, and the ribosome is the automatic machine that readsthe instructions and assembles the protein 1. This article questions this model. Basedon thermodynamics, gel physics 26, 23, electric fields, and the threshold model 13, itis argued that the ribosome should rather be understood as an enzyme than as a machine39, 7, that RNA is a permanent imprint—not a transient messenger—and that the cell at itscore is a cycle of recycling, where DNA functions as a reserve library consulted only whenthe cycle breaks down 12, 29. The article unfolds the consequences for the four-componentmodel 14 and discusses how the threshold model can be applied to understand disease,aging, and healing as shifts in the recycling balance 30, 20.
Lars H. Hasselby (Wed,) studied this question.