Most of the human genome may actually be junk.
Scientists had recently stopped dissing the part of the genome that doesn’t produce proteins. But a new study comparing the human genetic blueprints to those of other mammals concludes that very little of the human genome is really necessary.
About 7 percent of the human genome is similar to the DNA of other mammals, said Arend Sidow of Stanford University. Because it is similar, or “conserved,” geneticists assume this DNA is the most integral. In all, Sidow concludes, these important parts of the genome comprise only 225 million of the 3 billion chemical letters of DNA found in the complete human genetic instruction book.
But only a small portion of the conserved DNA is translated to produce proteins. Comparing the human genome to those of other mammals, Sidow shows that about 85 percent of the conserved DNA (and a bit more than 6 percent of the total genome) is found in spacers between genes or between protein-producing bits within genes. This positioning suggests these DNA regions may play a role in regulating how proteins are made, Sidow said November 3 at the annual meeting of the American Society of Human Genetics.
Just because a large proportion of our DNA does not code for and produce proteins, does not necessarily mean that it's "junk." It's only "junk" because we still haven't figured out why it is apparently unnecessary, which is directly related to the current state of our analytical technology and our theories. The so-called "junk DNA" question remains to be answered, IMO, and I'm confident that it will be in the near future. To read the rest of the article, click here.