New Report Siajdoia
Páginas: 2 (402 palabras)
Publicado: 25 de octubre de 2012
NEWS REPORT
Fabrizio Ramírez
6to E
05/09/2012
Researchers: 'Junk' DNA plays major role in disease
International research teams have junked the notion of "junk" DNA, reporting that at least 80%of the human genetic blueprint contains gene switches, once thought useless, that control the genes that make us healthy or sick.
Released Wednesday, the $288 million Encyclopedia of DNA Elements(ENCODE) project was funded by the federal National Human Genome Research Institute over the last five years. It includes reports by 440 researchers from 32 labs worldwide. The project set out to explainthe mystery behind one of the findings of the 2003 Human Genome Project, why only 2% of human genes seemed directly involved in the production of bone, blood, muscle and other tissues.
"The majorlesson from ENCODE is how complex the human genome turns out to be, with this incredible choreography of switches that turn genes on and off," NHGRI chief Eric Green says. Those switches, also calledtranscription factors or "regulatory" genes, number more than 4 million so far, residing on stretches of DNA once thought of as junk.
Results show these regulatory genes turn on and off to control genesthat produce bone, blood, insulin, muscle and other tissues. They also play a major role in disease. The effort is just a massive beginning stab at understanding the gene networks that let genesproduce the proteins and other material that build human beings. Among the findings from the reports already:
•Rare diseases: The results show that variations in these regulatory genes, once thought ofas junk, are responsible for most of the common ailments humans face, such as the gut ailment Crohn's disease.
•Cancer: Among the 17 major types of cancer, each type repeatedly suffers from defects in20 transcription factors, "over and over again," says genome scientist John Stamatoyannopoulos of the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle.
The studies, released by the journals...
Fabrizio Ramírez
6to E
05/09/2012
Researchers: 'Junk' DNA plays major role in disease
International research teams have junked the notion of "junk" DNA, reporting that at least 80%of the human genetic blueprint contains gene switches, once thought useless, that control the genes that make us healthy or sick.
Released Wednesday, the $288 million Encyclopedia of DNA Elements(ENCODE) project was funded by the federal National Human Genome Research Institute over the last five years. It includes reports by 440 researchers from 32 labs worldwide. The project set out to explainthe mystery behind one of the findings of the 2003 Human Genome Project, why only 2% of human genes seemed directly involved in the production of bone, blood, muscle and other tissues.
"The majorlesson from ENCODE is how complex the human genome turns out to be, with this incredible choreography of switches that turn genes on and off," NHGRI chief Eric Green says. Those switches, also calledtranscription factors or "regulatory" genes, number more than 4 million so far, residing on stretches of DNA once thought of as junk.
Results show these regulatory genes turn on and off to control genesthat produce bone, blood, insulin, muscle and other tissues. They also play a major role in disease. The effort is just a massive beginning stab at understanding the gene networks that let genesproduce the proteins and other material that build human beings. Among the findings from the reports already:
•Rare diseases: The results show that variations in these regulatory genes, once thought ofas junk, are responsible for most of the common ailments humans face, such as the gut ailment Crohn's disease.
•Cancer: Among the 17 major types of cancer, each type repeatedly suffers from defects in20 transcription factors, "over and over again," says genome scientist John Stamatoyannopoulos of the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle.
The studies, released by the journals...
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