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DNA 'Knockouts' Reveal Genes Humans Don't Need (sciencemag.org)
sciencehabit writes: Although humans have about 20,000 genes, exactly what most of them do inside our body's cells is still murky. One way to learn more is to find people who lack a working copy of a particular gene and see how that affects their health. Such so-called knockouts are scarce in the general population. But a new study points to a more efficient way to find them: Search the DNA of people from a culture in which marrying a relative is common. The study has found a number of genes that we seemingly can do without, including those thought to prevent serious diseases. And one healthy mother completely lacked a gene called PRDM9 that is involved in shuffling chromosomes during the formation of eggs and sperm. Mice lacking the gene are sterile.
Our genome is spaghetti code of the worst kind. If God exists, he is horrible coder.
"Search the DNA of people from a culture in which marrying a relative is common."
So they went to the Appalachians to do the study?
I heard there are between 10 and 20 thousand human genomes fully sequenced now. Both Craig Venter and Obama are trying to jack that up to a million. Then Analytics will replace a lot of painstaking lab work. (but not all)
What could go wrong?
Studies reveal that humans are also able to survive without a functioning X-Gene.
You can remove half the parts of my diesel engine. It'll work .. until the set of conditions that the specific part is intended to address occur at which time it will fail. Sometimes dramatically.
The human system is significantly more complex than my diesel engine, and the set of conditions that it encounters are significantly more complex as well.
The thought that ignorance of fact is evidence of fact is appalling. That we don't know what a part does, in no way indicates anything other than our own lack of understanding.
"No good deed goes unpunished"
Should be the "beneficiaries" of such a breakthrough.
Mind you, it all probably means that once more there's a publicly noticeable epic fail. Remember of course that a lot of those science think that around 90% of DNA is just junk.
Plot twist: The genomes they lack are the ones that keep the rest of us from wanting to marry our siblings and cousins. Could this be the beginning of the end?
What one fool would call 'junk DNA', the ox-slow grinding of disease and toxins would call a chance for a few members of the species to survive a near-extinction event.
I think of this a bit like the beginner programmer venturing into unknown territory: oh let's just remove this here and that over there, and let's compile. Oh, what's happening! Why isn't it working!
If it's working, don't fix it.
Some of these genes could be endogenous retroviruses - i.e. from ancient viral infections we've learned to live with and have been incorporated into our DNA.
Knock them out, and we could be infected anew!
" Search the DNA of people from a culture in which marrying a relative is common"
Kansas?
there is a lot of DNA that encodes for stuff we don't need... until we do. you could remove lots of genes that are only active under certain conditions if you can be sure you will never meet those conditions. however, the optimal evolutionary pattern is to hedge your bets.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
I'm under the impression that much (if not all) of the so-called 'junk DNA' that seemingly does nothing, is more like 'error handling' or 'conditional' code that rarely, if ever, gets activated -- but that might save our lives. For instance, a recent Slashdot story: Viral 'Fossils' In Our DNA May Help Us Fight Infection
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Trump has proven you don't need a frontal lobe to make lots of money.
In fact, large numbers of genes probably exist only to be used when you are sick or environmentally stressed. Many other genes give you redundant functionality, or functionality that individually only increases your performance on some task a little bit. Many genes have significant effects only in the brain, where it is very hard to find differences.
Don't get me wrong: the information that some gene can be deleted without being lethal is useful information. But it doesn't mean that you "don't need them".
God, you boomers are so out of it. miRNA, circRNA, sRNA, mRNA all show that our genome uses environmental triggers to shift express different proteins to adapt to different environmental conditions. You've even got tertiary metabolic pathways that express when you suppress the first two pathways with medications.
Look, it's not noise DNA. It's there for a reason. You just aren't in the environmental conditions needed to cause it to express itself.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
People messing with their genes are gonna turn out more messed up. Dont mess with recent scientific studies
"one healthy mother completely lacked a gene called PRDM9 that is involved in shuffling chromosomes during the formation of eggs and sperm. Mice lacking the gene are sterile."
The researchers might need to take another look at that woman; she might be a "chimera", whose reproductive organs don't have the same DNA as the part of the body responsible for a more-easily-tested substance (usually blood or saliva).