DNA with genes, which is 95% of the total, more As important pensaba.El albinism, Alzheimer's and cancer have been associated with this material.
A stranger in DNA. Genes, which are considered the body's operating instructions, only represent 5 % of human DNA. Of the remaining 95% do not know almost nothing. However, scientists are discovering that this so-called junk DNA plays a role in many of the characteristics of a living being. Last week released the first compound (enoxacin) that inhibits tumor growth (in cells and mice) acting on the genome dark. The discovery team is due to Manel Esteller, director of epigenetics and cancer biology at the Institute of Biomedical Research of Bellvitge (IDIBELL).
Another condition on which this DNA acts darker albinism. An albino person has mutations in a set of 14 genes that induce changes in pigmentation. However, in a kind of albinism, this condition there is no corresponding gene mutation. In these cases, "the changes occur in parts of that just 95% of intergenic DNA," said Lluís Montoliu, a researcher at the National Center for Biotechnology (CNB-CSIC) in Madrid and author of the discovery. It is, in particular of oculocutaneous albinism type 1, which is associated with a mutation of the tyrosinase gene, which synthesizes melanin. But 25% of people with this condition have no mutations in this gene, but deep in their DNA.
dark DNA has revealed its role in many phenomena. Their action affects the functioning of the X chromosome in women, affects the shape of the hand and been associated with Alzheimer's, multiple sclerosis and type of deafness. "The intergenic DNA could be what makes us different from each other," observes Montoliu. For many changes you have in 5% of DNA that correspond to genes, the differences in the remaining 95% may be more important. Even the difference between species could lie in there. "A human being has many fewer genes than a rice plant, but is much more complex - see Esteller -. The explanation of the difference in the DNA must be dark."
SECRET AGENT "In light of the new results, we need to rethink the concept of gene," says Montoliu. Genes those parts of DNA that contain instructions for the cell to make proteins. In turn, proteins (such as hemoglobin in the blood) work in many life processes. However, the DNA is not the simple sequence of instructions. "If each gene is a word in the book of DNA are very few meaningful words, separated by a lot more meaningless sequences of letters," explains graphically Juan Valcárcel, researcher at the Center for Genomic Regulation (CRG) in Barcelona.
published in diariocordoba.com
Carla
0 comments:
Post a Comment