Why is it beneficial for organisms to control gene expression?
I can’t even really begin to explain how important it is. It’s not just beneficial, it’s essential. Gene expression controls every aspect of an organism’s life. If an organism couldn’t control its gene expression, it couldn’t function. There are any number of examples that could be given. I’ll try and give a very broad and simple one. Organisms are always in constant struggle to maintain homeostasis (a stable internal environment). When something in the environment, or inside the body changes, the organism has to compensate to keep its condition the same. In order to do this, the organism always has to code for some kind of protein (proteins are the result of the expression of a gene). Even if the substance that brings about the change isn’t a protein, that substance was still originally created by a tissue, or an organ, or organelle that was created by some amount of protein synthesis. So in short, if the organism couldn’t control its gene expression, it couldn’t control protein synth
