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BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Human genome further unravelled
Human genome further unravelled
A close-up view of the human genome has revealed its innermost workings to be far
more complex than first thought.
The study, which was carried out on just 1% of our DNA code, challenges the view that genes
are the main players in driving our biochemistry.
Instead, it suggests genes, so called junk DNA and other elements, together weave an intricate
control network.
The work, published in the journals Nature and Genome Research, is to be scaled up to the rest
of the genome.
Views transformed
The Encyclopaedia of DNA Elements (Encode) study was a collaborative effort between 80
organisations from around the world.
It has been described as the next step on from the Human Genome Project, which provided the
sequence for all of the DNA that makes up the human species' biochemical "book of life".
We are now seeing the majority of the rest of the
genome is active to some extent
Tim Hubbard, Sanger Institute
Ewan Birney, from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory's European Bioinformatics
Institute, led Encode's analysis effort. He told the BBC: "The Human Genome Project gave us the
letters of the genome, but not a great deal of understanding. The Encode project tries to
understand the genome."
The researchers focussed on 1% of the human genome sequence, carrying out 80 different types
of experiments that generated more than 600 million data points.
The surprising results, explained Tim Hubbard from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute,
"transform our view of the genome fabric".
THE DNA MOLECULE
The double-stranded DNA molecule - wound in a helix - is
held together by four chemical components called bases
Adenine (A) bonds with thymine (T); cytosine(C) bonds
with guanine (G)
Groupings of these "letters" form the "code of life"; a code
that is very nearly universal to all Earth's organisms
Written in the DNA are genes which cells use as starting
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6/14/2007