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New Twist in microRNA biology

Category: Genetics
Posted on: January 11, 2008 7:00 PM, by Greg Laden

MIT scientists have found a new way that DNA can carry out its work that is about as surprising as discovering that a mold used to cast a metal tool can also serve as a tool itself, with two complementary shapes each showing distinct functional roles.
Professor Manolis Kellis and postdoctoral research fellow Alexander Stark report in the Jan. 1 issue of the journal Genes & Development that in certain DNA sequences, both strands of a DNA segment can perform useful functions, each encoding a distinct molecule that helps control cell functions.

There is a full press report here.

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Comments

about as surprising as discovering that a mold used to cast a metal tool can also serve as a tool itself

Not at all suprising if either:

You have a complete neophyte designer who thinks that in addition to having a need for a tool cast, he wants to get at the same time a file to sharpen it and doesn't care how it fits in the hand. The centuries of grief the abandonment of K.I.S.S. engineering principles will be directly attributable to such a unqualified designer. Or...
Things like the mold are developed piecewise by unintellegent agents from ancestor blobs and templates for blobs that serve a useful function are communicated to other agents for templates to continue the common descent with undirected changes accumulating over time. In such a model, if the blob has two functions, that makes it likely to outcompete a "designed" alternative which neglects one function for only modest gains for the other function.

Posted by: rpenner | January 11, 2008 7:38 PM

So microRNA genes can overlap on different strands? That's pretty cool, but I don't think quite "never even been hypothesized" level...

Posted by: OneRandomScientist | January 11, 2008 11:26 PM