Interesting conclusions in Nature.
Joel Kontinen
Junk DNA was not the only casualty of the recently published ENCODE project. A paper in Nature authored by Djebali and colleagues recommended that the concept “gene” should be re-defined. They concluded:
“This supports and is consistent with earlier observations of a highly interleaved transcribed genome, but more importantly, prompts the reconsideration of the definition of a gene. As this is a consistent characteristic of annotated genomes, we would propose that the transcript be considered as the basic atomic unit of inheritance. Concomitantly, the term gene would then denote a higher-order concept intended to capture all those transcripts (eventually divorced from their genomic locations) that contribute to a given phenotypic trait.”
This is rather interesting, as there is a field of studies called evolutionary genetics, which relies heavily on Darwinian evolution. What should we now call it? Junk science, perhaps?
Source:
Djebali, Sarah et al. 2012. Landscape of transcription in human cells. Nature 489 (7414): 101-108.
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