Non-coding RNA is the “dark matter” of the genomic world. It doesn’t contain the blueprint for making proteins, and yet it comprises more than 95 percent of the human genome. Now, scientists have achieved a major milestone in understanding how this genomic dark matter originates, which could help pinpoint exactly where complex-disease traits reside.
“We took this approach because so many RNAs are rapidly destroyed soon after they are made, and this makes them hard to detect,” said B. Franklin Pugh, one of the researchers, in a news release. “So rather than look for the RNA product of transcription we looked for the ‘initiation machine’ that makes the RNA. This machine assembles RNA polymerase, which goes on to make RNA, which goes on to make a protein.”
Read the full, original story here: Scientists Discover Origins of ‘Dark Matter’ in Human Genome
