Jumping genes can knock out DNA; alter human genome

Cell; University of Michigan ^ | August 9, 2002 | Sheila Lutz-Prigge and Nicolas Gilbert

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ANN ARBOR, MI - Results of a new University of Michigan study suggest that junk DNA - dismissed by many scientists as mere strings of meaningless genetic code - could have a darker side.

In a paper published in the Aug. 9 issue of Cell, scientists from the U-M Medical School report that, in cultured human cancer cells, segments of junk DNA called LINE-1 elements can delete DNA when they jump to a new location - possibly knocking out genes or creating devastating mutations in the process.

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More from the article:

Moran and his research team are part of a small group of scientists who study L1s in the human genome. "My personal feeling is that L1s built our genome and have continued to co-evolve with us for millions of years in sort of a host-parasite relationship," Moran says. "The more we learn about L1s, the more we'll learn about the evolution of the human genome."

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The idea that these "mysterious" genes were "junk" was never anything but the rankest speculation. Nonetheless the biology community acted as if it were a confirmed fact.

If they were more cautious they would have called them "unidentified" or "unexplained" genes or something similarly more tentative.