Junk DNA: goodbye! (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, November 11, 2013, 15:51 (3818 days ago) @ David Turell

"Eukaryotic cells use alternative pre-mRNA splicing to generate protein diversity in development and in response to the environment. By selectively including or excluding regions of pre-mRNAs, cells make on average ten versions of each of the more than 20,000 genes in the genome. RNA-binding proteins are the class of proteins most closely linked to these decisions, but very little is known about how they actually perform their roles in cells.
 
"For most genes, protein-coding space is distributed in segments on the scale of islands in an ocean," Lovci said. "RNA processing machinery, including RNA-binding proteins, must pick out these small portions and accurately splice them together to make functional proteins. Our work shows that not only is the sequence space nearby these 'islands' important for gene regulation, but that evolutionarily conserved sequences very far away from these islands are important for coordinating splicing decisions.'"-
 Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-11-un-junking-junk-dna.html#jCp-It is a matter of understanding that DNA is a 3-D object and spacing is needed to coordinate sections of the DNA. Note 10 versions of 20,000 genes makes 200,000.