Human Genome More Like a Functional Network

bshell writes "An article in science blog says we may have to rethink how genes work. So called "junk DNA" actually appears to be functional. What's more it works in a mysterious way involving multiple overlaps that seems to be connected in some sort of network." From the article: "The ENCODE consortium's major findings include the discovery that the majority of DNA in the human genome is transcribed into functional molecules, called RNA, and that these transcripts extensively overlap one another. This broad pattern of transcription challenges the long-standing view that the human genome consists of a relatively small set of discrete genes, along with a vast amount of so-called junk DNA that is not biologically active. The new data indicates the genome contains very little unused sequences and, in fact, is a complex, interwoven network. In this network, genes are just one of many types of DNA sequences that have a functional impact. "Our perspective of transcription and genes may have to evolve," the researchers state in their Nature paper, noting the network model of the genome "poses some interesting mechanistic questions" that have yet to be answered."

frst call on patent rights

[lazy genes]

Venter you are too late.

Messy Speghetti Help

[Tablizer]

They need to hire some Perl and 60's-style-COBOL programmers who know how to read tangled code ;-)

Re:Of course its not junk

[Profane MuthaFucka]

If an analogy were something standing up, it could fall down. But if it's a car then the analogy would drive away.

Its just code that's there for debugging purposes

[timothydsears]

These scientists have probably been looking at cells running in the debugger...

sneaky

[Takichi]

Our perspective of transcription and genes may have to evolve

well played ... well ... played.

Junk DNA

[narced]

I walk down the street and see 100s of people who appear to be predominantly junk DNA.

Re:Of course its not junk

[speaker of the truth]

Its like lego. At a glance it looks like you've made a castle. But if you study it too closely you realize you've just put a whole bunch of blocks on top of each other.

Re:Of course its not junk

[joto]

It's like masonry. At a glance it looks like you've put a bunch of rocks on top of each other. But if you study it closely you realize you've just made a castle.

Re:Of course its not junk

[cdn2k1]

It's like the Internet. At a glance it looks like you've made an insightful comment. But if you study it too closely you realize you've just made another redundant posting.

Re:Of course its not junk

[FormOfActionBanana]

If your posting were a car, all it would do is describe other cars.

Re:Of course its not junk

[Lemmy Caution]

It's like a potato, because I like potatoes, and lobsters crawl the depths of the sea.

Re:Of course its not junk

[Jesus_666]

So, does that mean I can submit my genome to Worse Than Failure?

Re:Of course its not junk

[earthbound kid]

fucking hell, you mean God wrote our DNA in Perl?!

We've known this for a while [xkcd.com].

Re:Of course its not junk

[Walt Dismal]

Actually, that is pretty relevant to brain operation where neural networks both store data and compute.

But on to my original reason for posting. If some kind of networks are involved in DNA operation, three ideas come to mind: 1) genetic spam 2) denial of DNA service attacks (I think viruses kind of do that in a way. Making them biological black-hat hackers), and 3) if the RIAA even THINKS of suing me for copying DNA, next time I catch the flu, I'm going to cough ALL over their lawyers. DMCA THAT, yoo hosers.

Re:Of course its not junk

[ikkonoishi]

A metacar?

Or would that be a car that would only allow other cars to ride in it?

Re:Of course its not junk

[The_mad_linguist]

Well, I never metacar I didn't like.

Re:junk genes was a junk idea

[Mr. McGibby]

Whenever I read something like this, I get a reminder how poor is biologists' comprehension of Computer Science, Information Theory, and languages.

Whenever I read a post like this, I get a reminder how poor is most techies' comprehension of biology, and more specifically, what biologists do.

Whenever I read something like this, I get a reminder how poor is biologists' comprehension of Computer Science, Information Theory, and languages. And I am a Computer Scientist who worked heavily in genetic research. Microbiologists *don't* understand enough about information theory. They need to learn more, a lot more. There really seems to be a lack of understanding of what genetics is all about. It's about figuring out how a machine works. It's about reverse engineering that machine.

The work I did was on sequencing a particular genome. The interesting thing was that once that was done, everyone on the project looked around and said, "Now what?" Seriously, finding the code is only the first step, and it certainly doesn't give you any understanding of what is going on. Geneticists spend far too much time analyzing GC content and other semi-useful statistical measures, when they should be getting into the nitty gritty of looking at the sequences, breaking them down, and figuring out how it all comes together. It's like trying to understand the linux kernel by counting how many times the word "foo" appears. Sure GC content affects the macro-chemistry of the system, but it doesn't tell you what the DNA is *doing*.