I sometimes get asked if non-coding elements (usually “junk DNA” is what they say) can ever evolve into genes. I usually say that transposable elements, at least, can be coopted into functional roles, and that it wouldn’t be so odd if a pseudogene took on a novel function sometime through mutations. Kind of a [...]
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I’m not making this officially part of the Quotes of Interest series, but I came across it while reading some papers yesterday and thought it worthy of note. “Since the sequence composition of satellite DNA is remarkably heterogeneous in most organisms, and since its phenotypic or evolutionary function is not yet clear, satellite DNA [...] I was just sent a link to this press release. Is this a parody or something? Shaking up the theory of evolution In a year that celebrates the 200th anniversary of the birth of Darwin and the 150th anniversary of the publication of “On the Origin of the Species, Murdoch scientists have made an [...] It has been quite some time since the last update to the Quotes of interest series on junk DNA. Most of the posts have sought to demonstrate that the exhausting cliché that scientists dismissed possible functions for non-coding DNA until recently is false. Therefore, I have provided many quotes indicating that many (if not [...] I noted previously that Scitable, a resource from Nature Education, was interesting but had some problems with the content [Scitable (and a weird piece on DNA barcoding)]. Well, more troubles. Excerpt from Transposons, or Jumping Genes: Not Junk DNA? Transposable elements (TEs), also known as “jumping genes” or transposons, are sequences of DNA that [...] Here is an abstract from a recent paper in Science Signaling. I haven’t read it in detail yet, but it is refreshing to see someone discussing the possibility that not everything that happens in the cell is optimized, given that we know various processes that generate nonfunctional parts. Abstract: Any engineered device should certainly [...] Sometimes I am asked whether a pseudogene can regain function. The answer, according to a paper by Bekpen et al. (2009), is yes. And the mechanism is cool — an Alu insertion knocked it out and an ERV insertion restored its function. Author summary The IRG gene family plays [...] I discussed the early papers involving the discovery of Alu elements in a previous post in the series. Unlike some transposable elements that are capable of autonomous transposition, Alu elements do not encode the requisite enzymes and depend on those of other sequences such as LINE-1 elements. Alu is restricted to primates, and its [...] As a brief follow up to the post about Dr. Andras Pellionisz’s Google seminar, I cannot help but quote from his website: Since a US Government-mandated (and taxpayer paid) 4-year study (ENCODE, led by Dr. Collins) established the scientific fact that (at the least a significant part of) formerly “written off” so-called “non-coding DNA” [...] Those of you who read this blog or others that discuss non-coding DNA will, for better or worse, be familiar with regular commenter Andras Pellionisz. Many people have concluded that Dr. Pellionisz is essentially a “crank”, though I believe I have tried to give him a fair hearing on this blog (before asking him [...] |
T. Ryan Gregory 
I am an evolutionary biologist specializing in genome size evolution at the University of Guelph in Canada.
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