Junk DNA was a term coined 40 years ago to describe the part of the genome that does not contain any genes, the individual instructions for making the body’s vital proteins. Now, this vast genetic landscape could hold hidden clues to eradicating human disease, scientists said.
Hundreds of researchers from 32 institutes around the world collaborated on the immense effort to decipher the hidden messages within the 98 per cent of the human genome without any genes and was thought, therefore, to have no function.
They have concluded in a series of 30 research papers published simultaneously today, in Nature, Science and other journals, that this so-called junk DNA is in fact an elaborate patchwork of regulatory sequences that act as a huge operating system for controlling the gnome.
Knowledge gained from this important insight, which has been largely hidden from view ever since the structure of DNA was revealed nearly 60 years ago, will prove critical to the future treatment of more than 400 diseases, scientists said.
“We see that 80 per cent of the genome is actively doing something. We found that a much bigger part of the genome - a surprising amount in fact - is involved in controlling when and where proteins are produced,” he said.