In each cell, thousands of regulatory regions control which
genes are active at any time. Scientists at the Research Institute of Molecular
Pathology (IMP) in Vienna have developed a method that reliably detects these
regions and measures their activity. The new technology is published online by
Science this week.
Genome sequences store the information about an organism’s
development in the DNA’s four-letter alphabet. Genes carry the instruction for
proteins, which are the building blocks of our bodies. However, genes make up
only a minority of the entire genome sequence – roughly two percent in humans.
The remainder was once dismissed as “junk”, mostly because its function
remained elusive. “Dark matter” might be more appropriate, but gradually light
is being shed on this part of the genome, too.