Molecular genetics and epigenetics in the morphogenesis mechanisms
Palaeontological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences
Profsoyuznaya 123, Moscow 117997, Russia
e-mail: tatar@paleo.ru
The progress of molecular genetics principally changed the views on heredity and, in the long run. wrecked the synthetic theory of evolution, designed for the microevolutionary processes in populations only. Molecular genetics as a whole is sufficient for analyzing evolutionary processes in viruses and prokaryotes. But in multicellular organisms, with the advent of more complicated morphogenesis, epigenetic processes took effect. Appealing exclusively to the integrity of the organism in ontogeny is insufficient for the understanding of these processes; further studies of the molecular basis for this integrity are required. The discovery of homeobox genes was an important step on this path. The theory of evolution should include not only the molecular processes but also the laws of ecosystem and biosphere processes, which study requires handling many problems of ecology, parasitology, palaeontology, and geology. All these fields together comprise an enormous area of knowledge for which the development of a unified theory is scarcely possible.
