Genetics of the Bacterial Cell

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Abstract
The two chemical activities of DNA, transcription, the copying of a single strand into a ribonucleotide sequence, and replication, the copying of both strands into deoxyribonucleotide sequences, are controlled by a network of specific molecular interactions determined by the genes. The message inscribed in the genetic material thus contains not only the plans for the architecture of the cell, but also a program to coordinate the synthetic processes, as well as the means of insuring its execution. Of course genetic analysis can do no more than indicate the existence of regulatory circuits. A chemical analysis can do no more than indicate the existence of regulatory circuits. A chemical analysis, which should disclose the specific molecular interactions, remains to be made. No repressor has yet been isolated, and the nature of the complexes that it can form with an operator or a metabolite remains obscure. We do not know how molecules find each other, recognize each other, and combine to constitute the regulatory network or to form such cellular superstructures as a membrane, a mitochondrion, or a chromosome. We do not know how molecules transmit the signals which modify the activity of their neighbors. It is clear that the problems to be solved by cellular biology and genetics in the years to come tend increasingly to merge with those in which biochemistry and physical chemistry are involved.