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Wednesday, September 5, 2012

DNA Porn P2

Here's a neat coincidence...I had no intention of posting a second part.  In the original post I introduced the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) and provided a link to their great video animations of DNA.

Well, CSHL and their co-collaborators have just published a bunch of papers in a number of journals regarding ENCODE (ENcyclopedia of DNA Elements).  The papers are summarized in three articles and I'll summarize those below.  Most of what's covered isn't totally brand new, it's just that these studies are more comprehensive.

Sorry, no animations.



We may have to redefine just what a gene is.  We knew a small percentage of genes coded for proteins, and others were regulatory, and others junk.  Now it looks like up to 75% of our DNA can be transcribed into non-coding RNA (doesn't make proteins).  The role of the non-coding RNA is uncertain but thought to have to do with cell signaling pathways.  Also parts of one gene can reside within another.

The complexity of gene networking has advanced.  The study showed that enhancer genes can affect distant genes and those enhancer genes are "wired" differently than proximal regulatory genes.  The researchers could also tell how much gene activity resulted from "mom" and how much from "dad".

Regulatory genes have been mapped.  But it's uncertain which other genes each regulatory gene controls and what causes the initiation of regulation.

The inherent complexity is amazing, much like trying to map neuron communication networks in the brain.

Chaos theory explores these kinds of phenomena.  There was a great BBC documentary on the subject, but all I could find was a short clip:



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