Study: Junk DNA is
critically important
SAN DIEGO, Oct. 19 (UPI) -- A University of California-San Diego
is important to an
organism's evolutionary survival.
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Junk DNA is so-called because it doesn't contain instructions for
-coding genes and
appears to have little or no function. But Peter Andolfatto, an
assistant professor of biology, says such DNA plays an important role in maintaining an
organism's genetic integrity.
In studying the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, Andolfatto discovered
such regions are strongly affected by natural selection --
the evolutionary process that preferentially leads to the survival of
organisms and
.
Andolfatto says his findings are important because the similarity of
genome sequences in fruit flies, worms and humans suggests similar
processes are probably responsible for differences between humans and their
close evolutionary relatives.
"Sequencing of the complete genome in humans, fruit flies,
nematodes and plants has revealed the number of protein-coding genes is
much more similar among these species than expected," he said.
"Curiously, the largest differences between major species groups
appear to be the amount of 'junk' DNA, rather than the number of genes."
He details his research in the Oct. 20 issue of Nature.