More “Candy” Found in Junk DNA

[Petr]

http://creationsafaris.com/crev200704.htm#20070424b


More “Candy” Found in Junk DNA

04/24/2007

Powerful regulators that play a crucial role – this is how non-coding sections of DNA are now being described. A story in Science Daily says that these regions of “junk DNA” once dismissed as “gene deserts” actually orchestrate the expression of genes during development.

In a related paper in PNAS,1 researchers found regulatory roles for many conserved noncoding elements (CMEs). “We identify nearly 15,000 conserved sites that likely serve as insulators, and we show that nearby genes separated by predicted CTCF sites show markedly reduced correlation in gene expression,” they said. “These sites may thus partition the human genome into domains of expression.” They found one family that might have a “broad role” for gene expression, and other “striking examples of novel functional elements.”

This realization is opening eyes to a new realm of genetic marvels. “Right now it’s like being a kid in a candy warehouse,” said one geneticist. Others who looked at transposons and jumping genes as nuisances that were “messing things up” now see them as useful. Evolutionists are invoking the E word in various ways. Transposons might be a “major vehicle for evolutionary novelty,” said one, while another remarked about emerging new view of junk DNA, “It’s funny how quickly the field is now evolving.”

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1Xie et al, “Systematic discovery of regulatory motifs in conserved regions of the human genome, including thousands of CTCF insulator sites,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 10.1073/pnas.0701811104, published online before print April 18, 2007.


It’s not funny. For decades, Darwinian preconceptions have held back a promising field of genetic research with their falsified notion that most of the genome is composed of evolutionary leftovers. Now that we see the design that was there all along, can we get on with what science should have been doing? Away with this new plot line that junk DNA is a source of “evolutionary novelty.” Darwinians, you have been exposed as usurpers.

Get out of the way. The field is not evolving. Intelligent design is taking back its rights.

[Insidium]

Why post the actual article when you can post religious propaganda instead?

Here is the actual article.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/04/070423185538.htm

'Junk' DNA Now Looks Like Powerful Regulator, Scientists Find

Science Daily — Large swaths of garbled human DNA once dismissed as junk appear to contain some valuable sections, according to a new study by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine and the University of California-Santa Cruz. The scientists propose that this redeemed DNA plays a role in controlling when genes turn on and off.

Gill Bejerano, PhD, assistant professor of developmental biology and of computer science at Stanford, found more than 10,000 nearly identical genetic snippets dotting the human chromosomes. Many of those snippets were located in gene-free chromosomal expanses once described by geneticists as "gene deserts." These sections are, in fact, so clogged with useful DNA bits - including the ones Bejerano and his colleagues describe - that they've been renamed "regulatory jungles."

"It's funny how quickly the field is now evolving," Bejerano said. His work picking out these snippets and describing why they might exist will be published in the April 23 advance online issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

It turns out that most of the segments described in the research paper cluster near genes that play a carefully orchestrated role during an animal's first few weeks after conception. Bejerano and his colleagues think that these sequences help in the intricate choreography of when and where those genes flip on as the animal lays out its body plan. In particular, the group found the sequences to be especially abundant near genes that help cells stick together. These genes play a crucial role early in an animal's life, helping cells migrate to the correct location or form into organs and tissues of the correct shape.

The 10,402 sequences studied by Bejerano, along with David Haussler, PhD, professor of biomolecular engineering at UC-Santa Cruz, are remnants of unusual DNA pieces called transposons that duplicate themselves and hop around the genome. "We used to think they were mostly messing things up. Here is a case where they are actually useful," Bejerano said.

He suspects that when a transposon is plopped down in a region where it wasn't needed, it slowly accumulated mutations until it no longer resembled its original sequence. The genome is littered with these decaying transposons. When a transposon dropped into a location where it was useful, however, it held on to much of the original sequence, making it possible for Bejerano to pick out.

In past work, Bejerano and his co-workers had identified a handful of transposons that seemed to regulate nearby genes. However, it wasn't clear how common the phenomenon might be. "Now we've shown that transposons may be a major vehicle for evolutionary novelty," he said.

The paper's first author, Craig Lowe, a graduate student in Haussler's lab at UC-Santa Cruz, said finding the transposons was just the first step. "Now we are trying to nail down exactly what the elements are doing," he said.

Bejerano's work wouldn't have been possible without two things that became available over the past few years: the complete gene sequence of many vertebrate species, and fast computers running sophisticated new genetic analysis software. "Right now it's like being a kid in a candy warehouse," Bejerano said. Computer-savvy biologists have the tools to ask questions about how genes and chromosomes evolve and change, questions that just a few years ago were unanswerable.

Bejerano and his colleagues aren't the first to suggest that transposons play a role in regulating nearby genes. In fact, Nobel laureate Barbara McClintock, PhD, who first discovered transposons, proposed in 1956 that they could help determine the timing for when nearby genes turn on and off.

Funding for the study came through Haussler, who is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator.

This is not evidence for Intelligent Design by any stretch of the imagination. It merely shows that our understanding of molecular biology was, before this discovery and others, incomplete. I could have told you that.

[koch curve]

I could have told you that.

looks like you just did

[Petr]

Why post the actual article when you can post religious propaganda instead?
Because that site helps people to read between the lines in science news and deconstruct evolutionist propaganda.

This is not evidence for Intelligent Design by any stretch of the imagination. It merely shows that our understanding of molecular biology was, before this discovery and others, incomplete.

Lie & deny, admit nothing. Evo-spinmeister at work.


Petr

[Angler]

Because that site helps people to read between the lines in science news and deconstruct evolutionist propaganda.

This is not evidence for Intelligent Design by any stretch of the imagination. It merely shows that our understanding of molecular biology was, before this discovery and others, incomplete.

Lie & deny, admit nothing. Evo-spinmeister at work.Okay, then -- perhaps you can explain, in detail, how this finding casts doubt on evolution?

This creationist propaganda you posted seems to sing a very familiar tune: "Those scientists were wrong about this detail of evolution; therefore, they must be wrong about the WHOLE THING! Yay!"

The problem with that line of reasoning is that it's not unusual at all for even well-established theories of science to be amended. In fact, it's expected. Science is not religion, where the "facts" are assumed from the outset and stubbornly adhered to in the face of all opposing evidence.