Slashdot Mirror
New Code Discovered in DNA?
anthemaniac writes "The NY Times is reporting that scientists have found a second code in DNA that goes beyond the genes. The code is superimposed genetic information and 'sets the placement of the nucleosomes, miniature protein spools around which the DNA is looped. The spools both protect and control access to the DNA itself. The discovery, if confirmed, could open new insights into the higher order control of the genes, like the critical but still mysterious process by which each type of human cell is allowed to activate the genes it needs but cannot access the genes used by other types of cell.'"
So did we finally discover the Midichlorians that Qui-Gon was rambling about?
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Over ten years ago, the hot new field in biology was "gene expression". We already knew about DNA, but there was a lot of "junk DNA" that seemed weird, as well as lots of questions around when and how DNA was actually turned into working proteins.
It turns out there's some vastly complex actions around how genes are actually expressed. Methylization semi-permanently deactivates DNA. Other things control the unfolding of DNA so that they're accessible to be exposed. Much of the "junk dna" is probably not junk, but rather controls gene expression to some degree.
The bottom line is that DNA is only the bottom rung of how information is stored and manipulated in the nifty little computers that are our cells. This is also a great context to talk about evolution - no sane intelligent designer would make a cell this way. If you think about small changes over billions of years, though, you can see how the warping and twisting of DNA could produce interesting results that are passed down from generation to generation.
Science is rarely boring.
The existence of nucleosomes is well known. It is not a secondary dna, simply a packing/folding mechanism for DNA, and it may have a role in regulating gene expression.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nucleosome
The paper itself is as bad as the press reporting it. Slashdot is hardly the avenue to discuss the fine points of a research, but here is something to chew on: note how the authors claim that they predict 54% of nuclesomes ... yet a little later note how by random chance this so called "prediction" would yield a 39% accuracy anyhow. I guess that 54% accuracy is a whole lot less impressive.
Behind the mumbo-jumbo, p-values, Komolgorov-Smirnoff tests, Boltman partition functions, etc all they do it match a set of 146 bp (start,end) intervals to another one. They are very-very skilled at hiding the simplicity of what they do behind a whole lot of fancy plots and words.
Nature should be ashamed of themselves ... the literature on this subject goes back many decades, besides doing more experimental work none of this is new, novel or even interesting. I also expect a significant backslash from people that are far more knowledgeble than I am in the matter.
Case in point: the HIV virus. It's an RNA virus. Most enzymes cells use for replicating DNA (called DNA polymerases) have a proofreading skill: if they detect that what they're reading is incorrect they'll rip it out and try again. Most RNA polymerases lack proofreading skill (because it's expensive: it takes a lot of energy, and RNA is, in the grand scheme of things, considered throwaway material, a transition from the data storage system to the actual machinery.) So, the viruses that rely on RNA as their data storage have a much higher rate of mutation. The result is that they have a vastly higher rate of nonviable viral particles, and a small number of extremely viable particles, which have found, by chance, better ways of evading host immune response. It's a main reason that HIV is so difficult to treat or cure.
Here is some information about reverse transcriptase error rates. In contrast, here is some for one of the DNApolymerases. As I recall, in eukaryotes there are three DNA polymerases, and only DNApolyIII has bidirectional proofreading ability (I may be wrong) so only it can scan finished DNA, but all three can scan DNA while it's being built. In contrast, I don't believe there are any enzymes that can scan finished RNA (since it's not, to my knowledge, found double-stranded in anything we've found, and you'd have no way of determining that there was an error) so the best you can hope for is really good DNA->RNA fidelity, and as I said earlier, there's not much evolutionary pressure FOR that in the rest of nature, while there's some evolutionary pressure AGAINST it (because it's expensive) so if it were to exist, it would only exist in things that would benefit from it, those being small RNA viruses that are much less likely to have either the history, the machinery, or the overhead to afford proofreading replication enzymes. Besides which, if their gain (number of viruses produced for each cell infected) is high enough, they A: don't care about individual viral particle loss from bad fidelity, and B: actually benefit from high mutation rate because of its help in evading host response.
whew. that was wordy. sorry.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
I find this akin to a computer trying to reverse engineer itself. For instance: I am a software program (mind) that is running on organic hardware (body). Whatever designed me probably coded me in Jah++, I can compile Jah++ natively, but I don't really know what any of it means - because I only understand binary. Is it even possible to understand how we are coded? I mean we can see that there is input and it is n characters long, and it affects the eyeballs. But can we really fully understand why? Why were we coded this way in the first place, and how are we able to understand what little bit we can? Finding comments and metadata etc. in our DNA should come as no surprise to anyone here. We have crudely reproduced the most basic inner workings of animal deduction in modern PCs. We didn't invent the PC, we observed and deduced things that occur naturally. PCs are built the same way we are, foreground processes (listening, watching, reading, consciousness) running on top of background processes (breathing, blood circulation, subconsciousness) inside of a case that cools and provides structure. There are input and output devices, microphone, camera, scanner, printer, speaker, etc. We are the creator's computers. We are a part of a grand design for a self contained network of evolving machinery. As far as our computers go, we are building the dinosaurs and hard shelled organisms, slowly we will evolve into making organic computers that are made out of the same stuff we are and can reason - way beyond AI, I am talking about proper intelligence being built into an organism. Arms being recreated, lungs being grown for implants, brains being repaired after car accidents. It is not a far fetched sci-fi scenario. We are able to interface brain to computer right now. Give us time and we will have a Data, we will not know the difference between man and machine. Just my observations. I could be wrong.
-Scottux