News

Junk food or junk genome?

from Laboratory News by Jose Ramon Bilbao and Ainara Castellanos-Rubio - As evidence pointing to the importance of non-coding regions of the genome mounts, a team from Spain discover a long non-coding RNA which plays a pivotal role in coeliac disease Coeliac disease (CD) is an immune-mediated enteropathy caused by ingested gluten that develops in genetically susceptible individuals. Nowadays, it ...

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CRISPR Deletion-Based Screen Identifies Functional Long Non-Coding RNAs

from GenomeWeb by Andrew Han - A new study published today in Nature Biotechnology turns high-throughput CRISPR/Cas9-based knockout screening towards long non-coding RNAs to find functional elements. A Chinese-American collaboration, led by first author Shiyou Zhu and senior author Wei Li of Peking University and first author Wensheng Wei and senior author Xiaole Shirley Liu of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, ...

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lncRNA COOLAIR displays a striking resemblance to an RNA molecular machine

Los Alamos-U.K. collaboration unveils hidden molecular machinery in RNA processes A special stretch of ribonucleic acid (RNA) called COOLAIR is revealing its inner structure and function to scientists, displaying a striking resemblance to an RNA molecular machine, territory previously understood to be limited to the cells’ protein factory (the ‘ribosome’) and not a skill set given to mere strings of ...

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MIT biologists unravel lncRNA structure-to-function relationships

from MIT News by Anne Trafton - Several years ago, biologists discovered a new type of genetic material known as long noncoding RNA. This RNA does not code for proteins and is copied from sections of the genome once believed to be “junk DNA.” Since then, scientists have found evidence that long noncoding RNA, or lncRNA, plays roles in many ...

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Human natural antisense lncRNAs can up-regulate protein translation

One of the biggest surprises of the past decade of genomic studies was the discovery that, contrary to previous belief, the majority of the genome is not used to produce proteins. Initially, many scientists thought that these long non-coding RNAs were non-functional “noise,” but in recent studies, a growing fraction of these lncRNAs have been found to have regulatory functions. ...

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CSHL scientists test an antisense method of targeting long noncoding RNAs overexpressed in breast cancers

The human body produces 100,000 or more different proteins. Yet, amazingly, only two percent of the human genome actually encodes proteins. Nearly 80 percent of the rest of the genome is transcribed into RNA that does not code for proteins. Two big questions facing scientists are: How much of this “non-coding” RNA is actually functional? And does it play a ...

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lncRNA DINO essential to DNA damage response

Stanford researchers have found that a tumor suppressor known as p53 is stabilized by a regulatory lncRNA molecule called DINO. The interaction helps a cell respond to DNA damage and may play a role in cancer development and premature aging. p53-mediated induction of DINO in turn stabilizes p53 through RNA–protein interaction, amplifying DNA damage response. Knowing when to hold them, ...

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Study unveils hidden molecular machinery in RNA processes

A special stretch of ribonucleic acid (RNA) called COOLAIR is revealing its inner structure and function to scientists, displaying a striking resemblance to an RNA molecular machine, territory previously understood to be limited to the cells’ protein factory (the ‘ribosome’) and not a skill set given to mere strings of RNA. “We are uncovering the nuts and bolts of plant ...

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Biological ‘dark matter’ molecule plays surprise role in heart failure

Discovery may help scientists develop effective therapies to prevent or reverse this common and often fatal disease from the UCLA Newsroom by Jim Schnabel - Scientists at UCLA have identified a molecule that appears to play a key role in the development of heart failure. The scientists found that blocking the molecule, known as chaer, in animal studies prevented the ...

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Surprise Grows Over Importance of Previously Dismissed Portions of the Genome

We’ve often pointed out how the collapse of the junk-DNA concept fulfills intelligent-design predictions while falsifying Darwinism. At the risk of being repetitive, it is important to keep reporting the latest evidence, for the benefit of holdouts. In the past, we have seen indirect evidence for function, finding that large portions of non-coding DNA are indeed transcribed, as shown by ...

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