Human gene secrets emerge
Thursday September 6th, 2012
Human genetic make-up is several times more complex than previously thought, according to the stunning findings of the latest investigative project.
It has twice as many genes as earlier estimates and it contains thousands of new "pseudo-genes" and so-called non-coding genes, according to the UK led project.
The project has raised new questions about the role of RNA, the type of genetic material associated with viruses, in human biology. The researchers say the non-coding genes operate through releasing RNA, which plays a "significant" part in human biology and disease.
The project also reveals "resurrected" genes together with those that have "died", having ceased having a purpose.
The findings come from the Gencode consortium, set up after the human genetic make-up was announced as having been decoded earlier this century.
The researchers last night reported more than 10,000 new human genes, publishing their findings in 30 articles in three journals, Nature, Genome Biology and Genome Research.
They also report more than 11,000 pseudo-genes and more than 9,000 long non-coding genes.
More than 400 scientists in the UK, USA, Spain, Singapore and Japan have been involved.
Researcher Dr Jennifer Harrow, from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Cambridge, UK, said: "We have uncovered a staggering array of genes in our genome, simply because we can examine many genomes in a detail that was not possible a decade ago."
Researcher Professor Roderic Guigo, from the Centre for Genomic Regulation, Barcelona, Spain, said: "Our initial work from the Human Genome Project suggested there were around 20,000 protein-coding genes and that value has not changed greatly.
"However GENCODE has shown that long non-coding RNAs are far more numerous and important than previously thought"
"The limited knowledge we have of the class of long non-coding RNAs suggests they might play a major role in regulating the activity of other genes. If this is generally true of this group, we have much more to explore than we imagined."
Tags: Europe | General Health | Genetics | North America | UK News
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