Question

A generous estimate of how much of our genome encodes an RNA accounts for only about 1/14th of its length; what else is in our genome?

At the end of class I made the calculation that showed only 250,000,000 base pairs of our genomes 3,400,000,000 bp. And I briefly introduced a few things we have discovered in what used to be considered 'junk' DNA. Before class on Tuesday, I'd like you to discover more about what research is discovering in this 'junk'. Is it useful? Is it bad? Are some hypotheses too far fetched? Remember to comment on other posts, particularly if you find the research unsubstantiated based on what you yourself read.

Answer 1

Question:- Are junk genomes useful?

Answer:- Genes account for only about 1.2% of total genomes. The other 98.8% is known as non coding DNA/RNA( genomes) .While most of them do nothing for us at all, but recent studies have revealed a wealth of new pieces of non coding genomes as important to our survival as our more familiar genes. Many of them may encode molecules that help guide and development from fertilised egg to a healthy adult. If these pieces of non coding genes become damaged, we may suffer devastating consequences like brain damage or cancer depending on what pieces are affected. Some biologist argued that some pieces of junk started out as genes but we're we're later disabled by mutation. For example, in a research some of the copies of functional RNA and junk RNA are used. After that, one of the copies of their genomes were removed. After the mating of organism they found that they died utero or shortly after birth.