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“Junk DNA” is important

Posted by Peter on September 14, 2008
Posted in: Miscellaneous. Tagged: evolution, genetics.

Most experts were surprised at the news that human DNA seems to contain less than 25000 genes.
Since then signs have emerged that the rest of the DNA (often called junk DNA is quite active, with about 80% of the DNA being transcribed into RNA even though only 1-2% constitutes protein-coding genes.
There’s a lot of mystery about what, if anything, most of that RNA does, but it’s not all junk. One such RNA molecule, HOTAIR, appears to control expression of some genes. RNA has an ability to fold into shapes that may rival proteins in their diversity, so there’s no good reason to think that creating proteins comes close to describing the set of functions that RNA performs.

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