Use found for "junk" DNA

Researchers have gained an understanding into the purpose of the long stretches of DNA, previously dismissed as "junk." Our understanding was that genes were the only important parts of the DNA molecule despite them only accounting for 2% of DNA. A new use has been discovered for another 80%. Within these regions, more than 10,000 new genes which code for how we control the genes that we know code for proteins and are thought to be Regulatory elements. One of the researchers, Professor Mike Snyder said "Much of the difference between people is due to the differences in the efficiency of these regulatory elements. There are more variants, we think, in the regulatory elements than in the genes themselves." The regulatory elements are thought to turn genes on or off and their discovery will provide an entirely new avenue for scientists to explore when seeking treatments for known conditions including Heart Disease and Diabetes. This is because genes are unable to function without regulatory elements, with malfunctioning of genes occurring when regulation fails, resulting in diseases including cancer and atherosclerosis. For now, 9% of DNA was found to be involved in the coding for regulatory switches although the true figure is thought to be closer to 20%.