Genome complexity: cell DNA expressed differently (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, July 26, 2017, 10:09 (2466 days ago) @ David Turell

QUOTE (my bold): But one central question remains unanswered – how does a cell know which combination of the 20,000 genes it should activate to produce its specific toolkit?
"The answer to this question may be found in the pieces of DNA that lie between our protein-producing genes. Although our cells contain a lot of DNA, only a small part of this is actually composed of genes. We don't really understand the function of most of this other sequence, but we do know that some of it has a function in regulating the activity of genes.
An important class of such regulatory DNA sequences are the enhancers, which act as switches that can turn genes on in the cells where they are required.
"However, we still don't understand how these enhancers know which genes should be activated in which cells.”

How do cells know xyz? Great question. Maybe they have an intelligence of their own. Just a thought!