Encode rejected (Introduction)

by David Turell , Friday, February 22, 2013, 23:22 (4269 days ago) @ David Turell

A very critical paper has just appeared downplaying the ENCODE claim that 80% of DNA is functional. The meaning of the word functional is debated and twisted in a extraordinary way. My take is that the huge DNA molecule at times has controlling segments which need to be a a certain 3-D realtionship to the gene. The DNA is coiled around histone spools and this arrangement requires modifying elements, various RNAs, to be at a seeming distance when DNA is expressed in a linear fashion, but in fact those elements are close by in the naturally coiled state. -http://gbe.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2013/02/20/gbe.evt028.full.pdf+html