Genomic recycling: Ancestral genes take on new roles
The lncRNAs (pronounced link-RNAs) until recently received much less attention than the protein-coding genes, but they are now proving to be of increasing interest to science. Not only are there as many as 20,000 lncRNA genes in the human genome -- about the same number as the protein-coding ones -- but the lncRNAs have lately been revealed to serve as master switches in a wide variety of biological processes. They turn genes on and off and affect other regulatory genes, controlling cellular fate during fetal development, as well as cellular division and death in the adult organism. These master regulators may therefore hold the key to elucidating or even treating a variety of diseases. To make sense of lncRNAs, scientists are trying to understand how they appeared in the genome and whether they can be grouped into classes according to their activity. In a recent study published in the journal Genome Biology , Ulitsky and his team -- research students Hadas Hezroni, Gali Housm...