In 2003, there’s been a really important event for genetics: was the human genome sequenced, after which the study continued in order to create a complete view of the genome. However, as recently stated by the scientists, part of the genome, namely 20% just does not manifest itself.
According to the editors of the journal Nucleic Acids Research, in order to obtain such data, an international group of researchers analyzed 3 major databases: GENCODE/Ensembl, RefSeq and UniProtKB, which contains information about the proteome. The proteome is, roughly speaking, all the protein that is encoded by the human genome. So, in your study, experts took a set of 22210 genes and found that all the databases have information only about 19 446 sections of DNA encoded functions. After that was analyzed the remaining 2764 gene and revealed that they encode no protein. Moreover, it was discovered 1470 so-called “pseudogenes”, which also lost the ability to encode proteins.
Thus, scientists have concluded that almost every fifth gene (i.e. 20%) may not be active and “not necessary”. But why can it happen? In fact, the answer is simple: in the course of evolution, very often you will lose many functions, including at the genetic level, giving place to a more useful or a brand new one, which helps the organism survive.
The results of the study currently are, but 300 genes in the database GENCODE/Ensembl reclassified as non-coding. The results obtained will help not only to better understand the human genome, but also to study the mechanisms of formation of many hereditary diseases.
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20 percent of the human genome was useless. How is this possible?
Vladimir Kuznetsov