TANGLED GENES. In the classic view of the genome (top), individual genes were distinct segments of DNA that a cell transcribed into RNA whole and in one direction. New data show that multiple and overlapping genes can occupy a single strip of DNA that also produces several functional RNAs that don’t encode proteins (bottom, not to scale).
S. Norcross
BOTTOM NOT TO SCALE
In the old view, each gene sat in splendid isolation on its segment of the genome. Other genes might be nearby, but scientists assumed that they didn’t overlap each other.
Now it’s clear that a single length of DNA can be transcribed in multiple ways to produce many different RNAs, some coding for proteins and others constituting regulatory RNAs. By starting and stopping in different places, the transcription machinery can generate a regulatory RNA from a length of DNA that overlaps a protein-coding gene. Moreover, the code for another regulatory RNA might run in the opposite direction on the facing strand of DNA. According to the ENCODE project results, up to 72 percent of known genes have transcripts on the facing DNA strand as well as the main strand.
http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20070908/bob9.asp
Information is still the Universal Code of DNA triplet to Amino Acid in sequence by sequence.