This dark matter is a simple term to describe large amounts of data there in your body that are not a component of your genes. Instead, this data helps regulate the way that your genes manifest and function.
The study examined the genetic material of 29 mammals, and compared these sequences of dark matter, trying to find similarities across the species.
This new map is said to reveal almost 3 million previously undetectable elements in non-coding regions that have been carefully preserved across all mammals, and whose disruptions appear to be associated with human disease.
Aside from the simple awesome factor of finding something new to have a look at in the genome, the researchers also think that because of the way this dark matter plays into genetic regulation, it may well help in finding out what causes the kinds of genetic disruption that results in disease in humans.
It also provides an interesting insight into the beginnings of the human race, showing the parts of the genome that are largely similar to other mammals, but also some 1,000 dark matter regions that have changed more recently, and are particular to the human and primate genome.
Source:
Lindblad-Toh, K., M. Garber, et al. (2011). "A high-resolution map of human evolutionary constraint using 29 mammals." Nature advance online publication.
There's a guy who researches this sort of thing in the IMB... John Mattick.
ReplyDeleteI went to one of his talks a few years back. The basic idea is that mRNA (and the introns cut out of them) regulates DNA transcription and protein activity, effectively forming a second layer of regulation within the cell (he made the analogy of going from an analogue computer to digital: the overheads need to go up in order to maintain the correct function of everything).
He doesn't call it dark matter though... he uses the term RNomics (just like genomics).