Month: September 2022

INCREASED LIKELIHOOD. "Although several types of selfish genetic elements exist in nature, few have been successfully engineered in the laboratory thus far. With the discovery of RNA-guided CRISPR–Cas9 (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats–CRISPR-associated 9) nucleases, which can be utilized to create, streamline and improve synthetic gene drives, this is rapidly changing." https://lnkd.in/eB6cXrs View in LinkedIn

POST-SCRIPT. "However, the possibility of unwanted ecological effects and near-certainty of spread across political borders demand careful assessment of each potential application. We call for thoughtful, inclusive, and well-informed public discussions to explore the responsible use of this currently theoretical technology." (Understatement). https://lnkd.in/ewXxsGD View in LinkedIn

NON-GENE SEQUENCES. "A team of seven geneticists have found something amazing in the genomes of humans and at least twelve other mammals..."conserved non-genic sequences" (CNGs) of unknown function that are better conserved than genes, and twice as abundant." (Non-genic = not genes). https://lnkd.in/eFvUyrd View in LinkedIn

CONSERVED NON-CODING DNAs "They are under a stronger selective pressure than other functional genomic element." https://lnkd.in/eFvUyrd View in LinkedIn

"CONSERVED SEQUENCES in nature are maintained despite evolution, presumably because of a critical function that they may serve to the organism." https://lnkd.in/eZmb7gi View in LinkedIn

REGULATORY TOLERANCES. "It was already known that there are sequences outside of genes that are well-conserved between the human and mouse genomes. Untranslated regulatory sequences need to be conserved, for example. But regulatory sequences have more error tolerance than genes, not less." https://lnkd.in/eFvUyrd View in LinkedIn

FIDELITY. "The faithfulness of conservation which this study observed in the CNGs is unprecedented. The most highly conserved ones have a nucleotide substitution rate, across the studied mammals, that is less than half that of protein-coding genes." (CNG = conserved nongenic (non-gene).sequences). https://lnkd.in/eFvUyrd View in LinkedIn

SELECTIVE CONSTRAINT. "These findings imply that the CNGs are subject to a very strong and continual selective constraint, enabling them to remain largely unchanged for as long as 300 million years." (CNG = conserved nongenic (non-gene) sequences). https://lnkd.in/eFvUyrd View in LinkedIn

TWIST ON SELECTION. "A selective constraint "is selective pressure that determines and limits the number of neutral/beneficial mutations that can take place. The more constrained a locus is under selection, the easier it is to generate deleterious mutations and the harder it is to generate beneficial ones; this can be reflected in low substitution rates at such loci in populations with time." https://lnkd.in/e6Dxb5h View in LinkedIn

NUMEROUS. "Another surprise is the high number of the CNGs. Extrapolating from the human chromosome analyzed, the geneticists estimate that humans have over 65,000 of them, about twice the estimated number of human genes. Another multispecies comparison that employed different methods found a similar number." (CNG = conserved nongenic (non-gene).sequences). https://lnkd.in/eFvUyrd View in LinkedIn