Thanks dubyagee! And thanks neverdem for the additional link. One for martin_fierro's list? ENCODE's results are changing how scientists think about genes. It found about 76% of the genome's DNA is transcribed into RNA of one sort or another, way more than researchers had originally expected. That DNA includes slightly less than 21,000 protein-coding genes (some researchers once estimated we had more than 100,000 such genes); "genes" for 8800 small RNA molecules and 9600 long noncoding RNA molecules, each of which is at least 200 bases long; and 11,224 stretches of DNA that are classified as pseudogenes, "dead" genes now known to really be active in some cell types or individuals. In addition, efforts to define the beginning end, and coding regions of these genes revealed that genes can overlap and have multiple beginnings and ends. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. |
