Noncoding DNA

importance of noncoding DNA sequences Since the completion of Human Genome Project in 2003, it was found that more than 98% of human genome is occupied by noncoding DNA sequences (Genome.gov, 2003), existing between genes and as introns within genes (Figure-1). In genomic, noncoding DNA regions are defined as the sequences of an organism’s DNA, which do not code for proteins. Although it has been known for decades that some of these sequences code for noncoding RNAs that involve in controlling many cellular processes, recently study suggested that many of them are in fact vital in regulating how our genome works (The Encode Project, 2004), while some research proposed that others may have no known biological function for…

The New York Times article goes into detail about a heated debate of whether or not our Human DNA is junk or not. Although valid points are made from both sides, throughout the article there was a tendency where scientists agreed at some degree that some of the non-coding DNA is junk. Some of the views that the article focuses on are aligned in broad spectra of agreement whether or not most of our DNA is complete garbage. Scientists like Ryan Gregory agreed that complexity of an organism is…

specific sites in DNA sequences of cells or organisms. The ability to achieve effective and precise editing of the genome has been achieved and advanced through the development of sequence-specific nucleases1. Zinc-finger nucleases and transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs) are programmable DNA binding nucleases previously used to achieve this targeted editing of DNA. However these tools have been found to be both time consuming and difficult to employ. The development a system…

Your DNA is relatively free from mutation DNA is constantly replicating itself in your cells to grow, which can lead to some errors in replication and recombination, and is also subject to bombardment from environmental factors everyday (such as UV rays or cigarette smoke, which can damage DNA and lead to cancer.) This leads to more than one quintillion DNA changes in one day, and you’re probably asking how you don’t have superpowers already. DNA mutations can be dangerous, and often cause…

I was first introduced to the Human Genome project in 2000, where my molecular biology professor explained genes as small units of DNA in a sea of genetic gibberish or junk. The concept of “junk DNA”was very intriguing to me that why nature created those billions of nucleotides of DNA inside a cell, organized it and packed it without any purpose? Soon I started following the thoughts of Francis Crick, Nobel laureate and co-discoverer of DNA double-helix, who in the early 1960s professed his…

complex disease is caused by just one single mutation in the codon 608 of the lamin A (Lmna) gene which encodes for the proteins lamin A and lamin C. Lamins A and C are proteins that form a filamentous meshwork underlying the innermost layer of the nuclear membrane, referred to as the nuclear lamina (Videk et. al.). The nuclear lamina is responsible for maintaining the structural integrity of the nuclear envelope, which serves as the barrier between the cytoplasm and the nucleus (Buke, B.,…

performed to provide evidence that early life nutritional exposure could induce epigenetic changes in key metabolic tissues of the offspring (Bouret, Levin and Ozanne, 2014; Ge et al., 2014). These changes stay after birth and result in permanent gene alterations during the further life of the offspring. Evidence is emerging to support the existence of the same mechanism in humans. This has led to research for epigenetic marks present early in life that predict the risk of metabolic disease…

Whole genome sequencing (WGS) was used before exome sequencing. WGS does exactly as the name suggests, it sequences the whole genome includes the noncoding regions. Exome sequencing has many advantages over WGS. Exome sequencing is much cheaper than WGS, coming in at a total of about $500 (Perkel, 2013, p. 262). Since the exon is much smaller than the whole genome, results are obtained at a faster rate and higher resolution than WGS. Some scientists think that exome sequencing is more beneficial…

human genome contains approximately three billion base pairs of DNA. Within this, there are between 30,000 and 70,000 genes, which together add up to less than 5 percent of the entire genome. Most of the rest is made up of several types of noncoding repeatitive elements.The relative percentage of non repetitive DNAin bacteria is 100% and decreases in the higher developed eucaryotes,70% in Drosophila and 55% in animals and 33% in plants. Most gene sequences are unique, found only once in the…

Aggravation or alleviation of these could contribute to the acceleration or delaying of the ageing process (3). One of the primary hallmarks is epigenetics (3); defined as changes in the activity and expression of genes that occur without modification in DNA sequence (4). These changes are performed through transcriptional control. One of the most important mechanisms of epigenetics is DNA methylation, regulated by protein complexes such as methyl-CpG-binding domain (MBD) proteins or HDACs.…