DNA Once Thought to be "Junk" May Be Important

Scientists have been struggling for decades to try to determine why certain people get health problems such as diabetes, high blood pressure, cancer, ect. and other people are not affected by these problems.   This article discusses how scientist are now beginning to think that gene switches may play a crucial roll in solving this problem.  Humans contain about 4 million of these gene switches that are found within DNA.  These switches which were once thought to be irrelevant are now being further examined.  The findings were found by a federal project involving 440 scientists in 32 different labs. This junk DNA was found to be made up of controls that determined the fate of all cells.  For example, weather or not certain genes are used in a cell.  Or if the cell becomes a brain cell rather than a neuron.



This discovery of the relevance of the none gene DNA may be very important in understanding many devastating and common diseases.  For instance: multiple sclerosis, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s disease, and celiac disease are all now thought to be linked to these gene switches.  It has also been suggested that these switches may control  characteristics such as height.  Even minor changes in these DNA switches may result to one of these diseases.  This discovery has also lead to insights on cancer.  Scientists now contribute cancer to changes in dark matter rather than changes in genes.  The problem is finding out what changes exactly are causing the cancer or development of a certain disease and what is the force behind these changes.  Although there is still a lot of data to be processed, the discovery that almost all of the DNA is used not just the genes is huge.  Hopefully it will lead to further understanding of how diseases and cancer work.  This may help in preventing them, or treating them efficiently.