Scientists Vie To Break Junk DNA's Secret Code

The Telegraph (UK) ^ | Roger Highfield

[blam]

Scientists vie to break junk DNA's secret code

By Roger Highfield, Science Editor
(Filed: 06/10/2003)

Huge tracts of human DNA, previously written off as meaningless junk, have been found to contain a hitherto unrecognised "genetic grammar", making the language of our genes much more complex than previously thought.

The discovery is of potentially huge significance, since it could lead to an entirely new explanation for certain diseases and symptoms. A race is now on among teams of scientists worldwide to investigate this cryptic code.

While the genetic recipe of a human being is spelt out with three billion letters of DNA code, only about two per cent of these correspond to the genes - the DNA that describes the proteins that build and operate bodies.

In the latest issue of the journal Science, Prof Stylianos Antonarakis of the University of Geneva Medical School, Dr Ewen Kirkness of the Institute of Genomic Research, Maryland, and colleagues have reported compelling evidence that up to three per cent of our genetic material has a crucial role that is not understood.

They made the unexpected discovery that some DNA regions of humans, dogs and species as distant as elephant and wallaby are nearly identical. These regions of what were once called junk have been dubbed "conserved non-genic sequences", or CNGs, a reference to how they are not conventional genes.

Prof Antonarakis said: "I suspect that mutations in CNGs may contribute to numerous genetic disorders." Defects in CNGs could result in illness while the symptoms of Down's syndrome, caused by an extra copy of a chromosome, might be linked to the presence of additional CNGs.

"Many laboratories are now working on identifying pathogenic mutations," he said.

[Blood of Tyrants]

But most likely they forgot to consider God.

[VadeRetro]

Consider that the Y chromosome has proportionately more junk DNA that the other chromosomes.

Two things come to mind.

1) As a man, I resent that.

2) Why do you think they call it the "Why?" chromosome?

[AndrewC]

Who woulda thunk it...

Well, we know who rejected it because it did not fit into the preconception.

They made the unexpected discovery that some DNA regions of humans, dogs and species as distant as elephant and wallaby are nearly identical. These regions of what were once called junk have been dubbed "conserved non-genic sequences", or CNGs, a reference to how they are not conventional genes.

Now we get to find out if this is a consequence of "programming".

[Ogmios]

conserved non-genic sequences

In other words they are junk, left overs from a time that is long past.

They are DNA strands that are useless to us now, but at one time were necassary for survival.

CNG's a prettier name for Junk, but junk all the same.

There may be less of it then we think, it may only be a very small percentage, but it's still there.

If it isn't used, it's junk, the very definition of junk.

I have all kinds of junk in my garage, if it were useful to me, it wouldn't be junk.

It's like calling used, preowned, it's like calling homosexuals, gay, or atheists, Brights.

It's junk, useless, but still there.

A rose by any other name is still a rose.

[Southack]

It will be exciting to see how the answers play out. My guess would be that the CNG's will either be common programming subroutines akin to DLL's in human software, or else they could be something such as lookup tables for code translation purposes...but we'll see soon enough (much to the chagrin of Evolutionists who will be forced to add yet another re-write or two to their versions of their pet theories)...

[AndrewC]

In other words they are junk, left overs from a time that is long past

Living creatures do not make it a habit of conserving junk, at least according to evolutionary theory. Try again.

[AndrewC]

much to the chagrin of Evolutionists who will be forced to add yet another re-write or two to their versions of their pet theories

I doubt it. You can already see that denial is in effect.

[aruanan]

Huge tracts of human DNA, previously written off as meaningless junk, have been found to contain a hitherto unrecognised "genetic grammar", making the language of our genes much more complex than previously thought.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. DUH!

[Ogmios]

According to evolutionary theory there ought to be all kinds of junk within DNA.

That's why most expext to find at least some junk within it.

That which is not used is not set aside, that is a question of survival, you never know when that little piece of socalled junk will come in handy again.

It is indeed junk because it is useless to us.

It is like my library, I love Science Fiction, but I used to love Fantasy, am I going to toss out all of my fantasy novels because now I Like science fiction, No, of course not, because I may decide that I like fantasy once again, and I have the room, so why toss them?

That is the way it is with DNA, you have the room to store the stuff, even if it isn't used, so why throw it away?

Evolution would lead us to expect a great amount of Junk DNA, never let it be said otherwise.

Now, if it were indeed intelligently designed, then indeed, we would expect no junk at all, no useless DNA, but it exists, and evolution expects that it exists.

[AndrewC]

Now, if it were indeed intelligently designed, then indeed, we would expect no junk at all, no useless DNA, but it exists, and evolution expects that it exists.

But junk is not protected from mutation. This stuff is, therefore it is not junk. It has a purpose.

The following from previous work.
Description of project and results for Dermitzakis et al - Nature 5 Dec. 2002.

The scientists of the Division of Medical Genetics of the University of Geneva Medical School with the assistance of members of the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics in Lausanne, compared all the letters of chromosome 21 in human and the corresponding part of the mouse genome. They discovered something unexpected : most of the important part of genetic material (DNA) that has functional significance and is therefore almost identical between human and mouse is not the genes ! This observation has profound implications in the study of genomes and the identification of mutations involved in human disorders. The exact role of these non-gene, but important genomic elements is unknown but probably regulate the function of genes (when, where, and how a gene functions) or provide the necessary structure of chromosomes so that they work properly. To be more precise, a total of 3491 evolutionary conserved DNA segments were found after a comparison of the human chromosome 21 and the mouse corresponding chromosomes. Of those 1229 corresponded to regions of known genes. Extensive computational, experimental, and evolutionary analysis of the remaining 2262 conserved DNA segments strongly supported the conclusion that these pieces of DNA are not genes

[Ogmios]

Why is that surprising?

Sure, it probably does have a purpose, but there will be junk in the DNA itself, just not as much as they consider junk now.

I have stated that already, a lot of the socalled Junk DNA is going to be found to be useful, and I have never said otherwise.

But some here have said that there is no junk DNA, and that will be wrong, there will be junk DNA, and that is exactly what it will be.

Just because they are discovering useful properties for some of it, does not make it a fact that all of it is useful.

Such generalities are incredible as far as I am concerned.

To make the assumption that because some of it has been found useful that wasn't understood to be useful before, therefore indicates that all of it is useful, is a silly assertion.

Some junk DNA is there, but some of it that is believed to be junk today, will be found to be useful through further study.

It is what we should expect as this discipline of science matures.

And I am not saying that you are the one making that assumption, I am just stating here that some seem to be jumping to some rather fascinating conclusions that this type of evidence, should not make them draw.

[Ogmios]

Sorry, I seemed to have missed your point totally and I apologize, you are correct, my saying that CNG's are junk was indeed not true, and you were correct to bring that to my attention.

Junk will indeed be subject to mutation, but for some reason this is not, so it cannot be considered junk per se.

What it actually is, will be fascinating to watch unfold.

[MonroeDNA]

"God invented evolution.

"If he did then it was certainly not Darwinian evolution. If God did it then life and the species were intelligently designed."

God invented Darwinian evolution, leading to our species. Darwinism, and evolution, are intellegently designed.

[MonroeDNA]

"That's a nice thought, but what does it say about the future?"

It seems pretty bright to me!

We've clawed our way up the food chain, to the point where we have much leisure time, and wealth, to discuss this, rather than fight day-to-day not to be eaten.

It's worked so far. I have confidence it will continue to work, just as God has planned.

[MonroeDNA]

"I think it's pretty much the same impulse that drives those on the other side of the fence to tout evolution as "proof" that there is no God. "

There are also those of us here who believe that evolution is proof that there is God.

In my opinion, nobody could have designed such a system, but God.

[jennyp]

spontaneous-order PLACEMARKER.

[PatrickHenry]

P L A C E M A R K E R

[js1138]

Now if coding DNA turns out to be more subject ot mutation than non-coding, THAT would be interesting. As for rewrites of theory, that's what science does.

[gore3000]

You're both conveniently overlooking the fact mentioned in the article that only 3% of the non-coding DNA has been found to be "conserved"

The article is full of incorrect facts such as that only 2% of DNA is in genes. It is more like 5%. Further in one fell swoop it was found that some 10% of DNA which evolutionists claimed was nonsense and were looking for DNA 'fossils' in was found to have a very important role - acting as a zipper during cell replication and division. Every day new things are found in junk DNA. In fact, one scientists says that genes are just factories, it is the DNA outside the genes that makes organisms work, and that is doubtlessly true. Genes by themselves do nothing, they have to be told what to do and when to do it.

As to the 3% - (if true, since this is clearly an evolutionist slanted article) it means nothing at all. In fact it means that each creature is made different and is programmed differently. If this were the 'fossils' of previous creatures, then much of that DNA should be just about exactly the same in all species in the same 'branch' of the evolutionary tree.

[gore3000]

Evolutionists, like most scientists, are uncomfortable taking a scientific theory and applying it to theology.

Gimme a break. Look in this thread, most evolutionists are atheists. Look at the promoters of evolution - Darwin, Haeckel, Huxley, Dawkins, Eldredge, Gould - all atheists. Look at the Descent of Man - specifically denying that man was made in God's image. No, the evolutionists are neither scientists nor shy about spouting atheist attacks on religion.