The Existence and the Socio-Economic Implications of Genetic Networks: A Meta-Analysis

In the recent past, the scientific community experienced a renewed interest in the study of complex networks. Numerous scientists from different fields were interested in studying the topological features and the interactions among the components of complex networks. Intense research activity was directed towards biological networks, where network theory finds its natural application and genes are considered nodes with links as the interconnections among them. These studies have produced remarkable progress, not only in understanding the topological and chemical structures of the genes (which, today, can be described and determined precisely), but also on improving agricultural crops. Thanks to the deep genetic knowledge acquired, genes can be modified and recombined into the cells of living organisms. For this reason, scientists started to use the recombinant DNA technique to improve crop productivity or to make crops more resistant to stress, diseases, and chemical treatments. In order to unleash the potential of cultivated crops, agriculturists can use the recombinant DNA technique—which is improving crop breeding—also in an indirect way. This means that scientists do not introduce novel genes, but they are going to achieve good results thanks to the development of marker technologies. This kind of technology allows scientists to identify and map parts of a chromosome, which contain the genes that cover relevant areas of agronomic interest. These studies have been developed for most crop species and have led to important discoveries. In studying the individual loci that control a quantitatively inherited trait, scientists thought at first that complex traits were determined by a large number of genes, but they more recently noticed that the effects of these loci are very uneven and in many cases only few loci can affect complex traits. Following this discovery, plant biologists performed different experimental studies focusing the attention on the genome of different crops. In order to define gene targeting for functional identification and for investigations of regulatory mechaPasquale Lucio Scandizzo and Alessandra Imperiali University of Rome Tor Vergata Genetic networks are recent paradigms for the inheritance of traits from parents. They can be defined as relational structures composed of genes, some of which carry genetic information, and linkages with structural or regulating properties. Previous studies have found that biological networks are characterized by scale-free or power-law algorithms, with the development of highly influential genes with many—but sparse—connections to other genes, and with key regulatory roles in phenotypical expression. The highly influential genes are “hotspots” of regulatory functions and represent the top of the network. Seven basic typologies of genetic networks have been discovered; in these networks, genes play different roles. In this article, we address the issue of the characteristics of genetic networks and their social and economic implications by reviewing recent literature on the subject and developing a meta-analysis of a sample of recent studies. We explore the implications of a model where the desirable traits depend not only on the properties of the individual genes, but also on their connections and the architecture of the network. The model suggests that under reasonable hypotheses and interpretations of past research, several important consequences follow for the interpretation of the roles of genes in everyday life, their interaction with the environment, and their socio-economic role. A major implication for agricultural research on biotechnology is that a strategy aimed to select varieties on the basis of topological properties of the underlying genetic network, and their regulatory role, may be more successful than one depending only on focusing on the direct association between specific genes and desirable traits.