Junk DNA is not junk after all.

[Guest guest]

We all have heard that the DNA mapping is "complete". What most do not know is that only 5% of the DNA has been mapped, the rest 95% is considered "junk" or "useless". This has raised many an eyebrow as the entire DNA should be important, nature has no place for "junk".Now, as this report suggests, the "junk" may not be junk after all. This will pose a new challenge for those who say that genetic engineering has advanced enough to foray into commercial ventures. This also exposes the great dangers involved in tinkering with genes based on the current depth of knowledge. Another factor is that we all have different DNA structures. So the question jocularly referred to in genetic study circles is,"Whose DNA has been mapped?". Genetic engineering for commercial purposes is frowned upon by the genetic engineers themselves. But the industry is impatient to reap profits. In the process the lives of the entire worlds population is

being subjected to great risk. As already pointed out, gene modifications has the ability to jump species. The risks are too great to be even contemplated.All discerning citizens should raise their voices against GMO/LMOs, and also against genetically engineered drugs and genetically modified viruses used in various vaccines and also the proposed bird-flu vaccine. DNA modifications also do not travel in a linear fashion. It is a "fluid" phenomenon that can act in any direction and is hence considered to be unforeseeable as per current measurement standards. We, despite tall claims, know precious little about genes and how they work to keep the organism in shape. In America, soy, corn and rapeseed has been taken over by the GM industry. Therefore genetic contamination has already begun. India must have already imported these items as grain or oil and they must have been used in the food industry. What about the

cornflakes we regularly give to our children? Also in India Bt cotton experiments have not been shielded enough resulting in possible contamination of cotton seed oil, cotton clothes, bandages and gauges in the medical industry and also, as cottonseed cakes are fed to milch cattle to increase milk production, milk too may have been contaminated. Genetic drug experimentation has also begun and has already resulted in a catastrophe where six lives have been endangered. The medical industry wants to hurry the entry of more GE drugs because antibiotics are failing, vaccines have been questioned, and they have nothing else to fall back upon. Assaulted by the growing popularity of holistic therapies the medical industry is insecure and cannot be trusted to take mature steps in this direction. As per experts, GM food intolerance may be immediate or staggered. We have already seen the immediate

reaction in farmers handling GM plants and also in the GE drug experiments. What are the staggered reactions? No one can say for sure. Regards, Jagannath. --------- GMW: Salvage prospect for 'junk' DNA"GM WATCH" <infoWed, 26 Apr 2006 13:38:50 +0100GM WATCH dailyhttp://www.gmwatch.org---As Craig Venter - leader of one of the team's that decoded the humangenome - memorably remarked, "We don't know sh*t about biology."---Salvage

prospect for 'junk' DNABy Paul RinconBBC News science reporterBBC NEWS, 26 April 2006http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4940654.stmA mathematical analysis of the human genome suggests that so-called"junk DNA" might not be so useless after all.The term junk DNA refers to those portions of the genome which appearto have no specific purpose.But a team from IBM has identified patterns, or "motifs", that werefound both in the junk areas of the genome and those which coded forproteins.The presence of the motifs in junk DNA suggests these portions of thegenome may have an important functional role.The findings are reported in Proceedings of the National Academy ofSciences journal.But they will have to be verified by experimenters in the lab, thescientists behind the work point out.Dr Andrew

McCallion, who was not an author on the new paper, commented:"Up until not so long ago, we were under the impression that the vastmajority of information in the genome, if not all of it, was encoded inthose stretches of DNA that encoded proteins."We now understand there is much more complexity involved," DrMcCallion, from the McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine atthe JohnsHopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, US, told the BBCNews website.Lead author Isidore Rigoutsos and colleagues from IBM's Thomas J WatsonResearch Center used a mathematical tool known as pattern discovery totease out patterns in the genome.This technique is often used to mine useful information from very largerepositories of data in the worlds of business and science.Scrapheap challengeThey sifted through the approximate total of six billion letters in thenon-coding regions of the human genome and

looked for repeatingsequence fragments, or motifs."One of the things that arises from this paper is that junk DNA may notbe junk. But this needs to be verified," Dr Rigoutsos told the BBC Newswebsite.The researchers found millions of the motifs in non-coding DNA. Butroughly 128,000 of these also occurred in the coding region of thegenome.These were also over-represented in genes which are involved inspecific biological processes.These processes include the regulation of transcription - the beginningof the process that ultimately leads to the translation of the geneticcode into a peptide or protein - and communication between cells.Dr Rigoutsos said his team's work suggested, "a connection between avast area of the genome we didn't think was functional with the part ofthe genome we knew was functional".He explained that experimental work would be needed to establish thisconnection: "The

average lab does not have the resources to prove ordisprove this, so it will need a lot of effort by lots of people," heexplained.Gene silencingThe paper in PNAS suggests that the actual positioning of the motifs isassociated with small RNA molecules that are involved with a processcalled post-transcriptional gene silencing (PTGS)."A human embryo starts out as a single fertilised cell and rapidlydivides into a widely complex series of cells that become a human being,"explained Dr McCallion."Every cell in that human being contains the same complement of genesand what makes each cell different is the precise way that genes areturned on and turned off."PTGS turns genes off after the process of transcription has takenplace. One way in which this occurs is through "RNA interference", whichinvolves the introduction of double-stranded RNA molecules.These trigger the degradation of another type

of RNA molecule known asmessenger RNA (mRNA), "down-regulating" the gene. During transcription,this molecule encodes and carries information from genes to sites ofprotein synthesis."These regions may indeed contain structure that we haven't seenbefore," said Dr Rigoutsos."If indeed one of them corresponds to an active element that isinvolved in some kind of process, then the extent of cell processregulationthat actually takes place is way beyond anything we have seen in thelast decade."Paul.Rincon-INTERNET...[side table]The double-stranded DNA molecule is held together by chemicalcomponents called bases - Adenine (A) bonds with thymine (T); cytosine© bonds with guanine

(G)These letters form the "code of life". There are estimated to be about2.9 billion base-pairs in the human genome wound into 24 distinctbundles, or chromosomesWritten in the DNA are 20-25,000 genes, which human cells use asstarting templates to make proteins. These sophisticated moleculesbuild and maintain our bodies-------------------------- "Our ideal is not the spirituality that withdraws from life but the conquest of life by the power of the spirit." - Aurobindo.

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