Question

In general, why is it important to regulate genes?

Provide a minimum of five relevant sentences.

Answer 1

Gene regulation is important as uncontrolled gene expression is usually harmful to the individual. Since all the functions in a cell require the activity of multiple genes, the up-regulation of any one gene would disturb the balance of cell activity. Genes that promote cell division are especially important to control as unregulated expression of these genes leads to cancer. Over-expression of genes in a cell would also lead to the cell not functioning as it should in the context of the larger organism and may cause disease.

Conversely, just as too much expression of a gene can lead to problems, so can too little gene expression. Too little gene expression can cause a variety of problems, including energy deficiency, starvation, accumulation of harmful substances etc. If regulatory genes are under-expressed, the genes under their control can be over-expressed, which also leads to issues.

Therefore, carefully regulated gene expression is required for a cell to function optimally.