{"id":12576,"date":"2012-09-07T05:30:09","date_gmt":"2012-09-07T09:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.geneveith.com\/?p=12576"},"modified":"2012-09-07T05:30:09","modified_gmt":"2012-09-07T09:30:09","slug":"what-junk-dna-does","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2012\/09\/what-junk-dna-does\/","title":{"rendered":"What “junk DNA” does"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

A major discovery:<\/p>\n

It turns out that \u201cjunk DNA\u201d, once thought to comprise most of the genetic material packed into our cells, isn\u2019t junk. Instead, it plays a complicated \u2014 and still shadowy \u2014 role in regulating our genes.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the essential insight of a five-year project to study the 98 percent of the human genome that is not, strictly speaking, genes. It now appears that more than three-quarters of our DNA is active at some point in our lives.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis concept of \u2018junk DNA\u2019 is really not accurate. It is an outdated metaphor to explain our genome,\u201d said Richard Myers, one of the leaders of the 400-scientist Encyclopedia of DNA Elements Project, nicknamed Encode.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe genome is just alive with stuff. We just really didn\u2019t realize that before,\u201d said Ewan Birney of the European Bioinformatics Institute in England.<\/p>\n

The new insights are contained in six papers published Wednesday in the journal Nature. More than 20 related papers from Encode are appearing elsewhere.<\/p>\n

\nThe human genome consists of about 3 billion DNA \u201cletters\u201d strung one to another in 46 chains called chromosomes. Specific stretches of those letters (whose formal name is \u201cnucleotides\u201d) carry the instructions for making specific proteins. Those proteins, in turn, build the cells and tissues of living organisms.\n

The Human Genome Project, which identified the correct linear sequence of those letters, revealed that human cells contain only about 21,000 genes \u2014 far fewer than most biologists predicted. Furthermore, those genes took up only 2 percent of the cell\u2019s DNA. The new research helps explain how so few genes can create an organism as complex as a human being.<\/p>\n

The answer is that regulating genes \u2014 turning them on and off, adjusting their output, manipulating their timing, coordinating their activity with other genes \u2014 is where most of the action is.<\/p>\n

The importance and subtlety of gene regulation is not a new idea. Nor is the idea that parts of the genome once thought to be \u201cjunk\u201d may have some use. What the Encode findings reveal is the magnitude of the regulation.<\/p>\n

It now appears that at least 4 million sections of the genome are involved in manipulating the activity of genes. Those sections act like switches in a wiring diagram, creating an almost infinite number of circuits.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a modest number of genes and an immense number of elements that choreograph how those genes are used,\u201d said Eric D. Green, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, the federal agency that paid for the research.<\/p>\n

via \u2018Junk DNA\u2019 concept debunked by new analysis of human genome \u2013 The Washington Post<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So every cell of every living organism contains not just genetic information but a whole system for activating, directing, timing, and animating that information.<\/p>\n

We sure are lucky that millions of years of random mutations and natural selection evolved into something so infinitely complex.<\/p>\n

Oh, wait.\u00a0 All of that had to be in place in order to make reproduction possible; that is, before<\/em> natural selection could happen.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/blockquote><\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A major discovery: It turns out that \u201cjunk DNA\u201d, once thought to comprise most of the genetic material packed into our cells, isn\u2019t junk. Instead, it plays a complicated \u2014 and still shadowy \u2014 role in regulating our genes. That\u2019s the essential insight of a five-year project to study the 98 percent of the human […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,40],"tags":[793,907,1093],"class_list":["post-12576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nature","category-science","tag-evolution","tag-genetics","tag-intelligent-design"],"yoast_head":"\nWhat "junk DNA" does<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A major discovery: It turns out that \u201cjunk DNA\u201d, once thought to comprise most of the genetic material packed into our cells, isn\u2019t junk. 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