'Junk' DNA Mystery Solved: It's Not Needed

[Still Waters]

One person's trash may be another person's treasure, but sometimes, trash is just trash.

So-called junk DNA, the vast majority of the genome that doesn't code for proteins, really isn't needed for a healthy organism, according to new research.

http://www.livescien...ery-solved.html

[SHaYap]

on the other hand :

Most of our DNA may well have originated as ‘junk’ but that junk has been put to work. One of its most common jobs is to produce tiny bits of RNA known as ‘microRNA’ that targets other RNA for destruction. MicroRNA has been shown to shut down the activity of protein-coding RNA in everything from petunias to people.

Junk DNA also plays another crucial function: it guards the DNA code from invasion by retroviruses or so-called jumping genes, which can hop about in the genome causing dangerous mutations.

link

"Junk" DNA Holds Clues to Common Diseases

With the new annotation of the human genome, researchers are finding that most of the code between genes is controlling crucial functions for life and health

link

on comment post by 1. theDNAproblem 03:01 AM 9/6/12 :

It is great that the theory of Junk DNA has been proven false. Logic tells us that there is a lot more information in the DNA than even this newly uncovered information. Here is a video outlining what has to be in the DNA:

or look for this on You Tube 02 Information in DNA by theDNAproblem.

The process these scientists are involved in is what is known as reverse engineering in computing.

We don't know enough about the junk to know where the junk starts or ends //

[crystal sage]

Just saw this today... gets you wondering about the left over 'Junk Genes " in the GMO and genetically engineering industry.. where the cut and splice methods disregarded the junk genes added these to viruses for vaccinations and all other sorts experimental science.. ( which is what it still is) ..  http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2013/11/21/3895338.htm

 

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One man's trash is another man's treasure has taken on new meaning with researchers showing bacteria can reuse small scraps of "second-hand" DNA, including 43,000-year-old segments from a woolly mammoth.

However the Norwegian and Danish researchers say it is a game of Russian roulette for the bacteria as while the short DNA strands may play a role in its genome evolution, the DNA could also destroy its host.

The finding, published in the latest Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, has implications for the development of antibiotic resistance and our perception of the evolution of life, the authors say.

First author Dr Soren Overballe-Petersen, from the Centre for GeoGenetics at the Natural History Museum of Denmark, says it is well known that bacteria can take up long intact pieces of DNA.

"But so far the assumption has been that short DNA fragments were biologically inactive," he says in a statement.

"Now we have shown this assumption was wrong - as long as you have just a tiny amount of DNA left over there is a possibility that bacteria can re-use the DNA."

 

[crystal sage]

and...  what was discovered earlier... http://www.naturalnews.com/037176_junk_DNA_gene_switches_health.html

 

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Now, though, scientists have identified a clue that could eventually help them figure out such riddles. They know that the human genome is filled with at least four million gene switches that inhabit bits of DNA which were at one time written off as "junk" but have turned out to play crucial roles in controlling how cells, organs and other tissues behave, The New York Times reported.

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/037176_junk_DNA_gene_switches_health.html#ixzz4I263nim8
 

 

[crystal sage]

   and

Quote

Taken from a DNA point of view, not every piece of it in each human gene encodes for a functional protein; only about 10 percent does, in coding regions called "exons." The other 90 percent of the stuff that fills the intervening regions are longer stretches of dark matter known as "introns."

But something mysterious happens to introns during the final processing of messenger RNA (mRNA), the genetic blueprint that's sent from the cell's nucleus to its protein factory. Only particular exons may be included within the final mRNA produced from that gene, whereas the introns are cut out and destroyed.

It's therefore easier to understand why more scientific attention has been given to exons. "When people are looking at the genetics of a disease, most of the time they're looking for the change in the coding sequence," Wang said. "But 90 percent of the sequence is hidden in the gene's introns. So when you study gene variants or polymorphisms that cause human disease, you can only explain the part that's in the exon. Yet the majority remains unexplainable because they're in the introns."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130107100057.htm

[crystal sage]

http://www.panspermia.org/introns.htm   

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Some introns appear to have "slipped" to a slightly different position in closely related genes found in different species. Under Cosmic Ancestry it would be conceivable for an intron to be originally inserted in different positions in different lineages, after two versions of a gene had already diverged from each other slightly. This suggestion gains support from a study published in September 1997 showing that actual slipping of position (or "sliding," "drift," "migration," etc.) cannot account for most examples of the slightly different intron positions (13).

Another study analyzes the distribution of intron phases within the flanking codons of genes. The authors make much of the fact that the exonic sequences around the intron are poorly conserved, and conclude that the data do not support the "introns late" theory (14). But, for example, once an intron has been inserted, its corresponding exonic "homing" sequences might no longer be maintained by selective pressure, a possibility not considered in this study.

One intriguing recent finding is that DNA that contains introns exhibits structure at a very large scale. "A specific nucleotide at one site in a DNA strand appears to have a bearing on ...a specific site 100, 1000, 10,000 or even more nucleotides away" (15). As one of the researchers who made the finding said, "This work raises more questions than it answers."

Occasionally introns do assume a function within the cell — as templates not for RNA that codes for protein but for RNA that has another role. In addition, occasionally, the exons in such a gene are silent (16). This situation is backwards. No one has any idea how this arrangement could have evolved, if strands of nucleotides gradually evolve new functions by the darwinian method.

Cosmic Ancestry offers a promising new perspective on the puzzle of introns.

 

[Dark_Grey]

My experience with junk has always been once you throw it out, you need it 2 weeks later. Not sure how that works with genetic material

[crystal sage]

you might like this photo that was just shared on Facebook....