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FASTER EVOLUTION. "The mutational flexibility of ncRNA allows for faster evolutionary substitution rates than proteins, entailing discrete patterns of mutation that are sufficient to predict function." (ncRNA = Noncoding RNA). http://nar.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2013/07/11/nar.gkt596.full View in LinkedIn

MUTATIONS SHELTERED. "When RNAs function through their 2D or 3D structural conformations, mutations are often tolerated provided that they maintain complementary base pairing—an occurrence termed covariation, which is a bona fide indication of evolutionary selection on RNA structure." http://nar.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2013/07/11/nar.gkt596.full View in LinkedIn

CONFORMATION CONFERS FUNCTION in prions. "Changes in protein conformation drive most biological processes, but none have seized the imagination of scientists and the public alike as have the self-replicating conformations of prions." https://lnkd.in/g53v37B View in LinkedIn

SHAPE SPECIFYING FUNCTION. "Given that the molecular function of ncRNA may at least be partially conveyed through secondary or tertiary structures, mining evolutionary data for evidence of such features promises to increase the resolution of functional genomic annotations." (ncRNA = non coding RNA). http://nar.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2013/07/11/nar.gkt596.full View in LinkedIn

NON-CODING DNA. "Lack of conservation does not impute lack of function, as variation underlies natural selection." http://nar.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2013/07/11/nar.gkt596.full View in LinkedIn

SECONDARY STRUCTURES. "Evolutionarily conserved RNA secondary structures are a robust indicator of purifying selection and, consequently, molecular function." http://nar.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2013/07/11/nar.gkt596.full View in LinkedIn

EXON CONSERVATION. "Exonic splice enhancers' "abundance at exon ends explains, at least in part, why exon ends tend to be more conserved than exon cores." https://lnkd.in/drMDPh6 View in LinkedIn

SEA CHANGE. "The majority of the human genome is dynamically transcribed into RNA, most of which does not code for proteins. The once common presumption that most non–protein-coding sequences are nonfunctional for the organism is being adjusted to the increasing evidence that noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs) represent a previously unappreciated layer of gene expression essential for the epigenetic regulation of differentiation and development." https://lnkd.in/guFKNHU View in LinkedIn

MAJOR EVOLUTIONARY ROLE. "Importantly, exonic splice enhancers appear to play a major role in shaping patterns of vertebrate sequence evolution. These motifs are under purifying selection, as evidenced both by their decreased rate of evolution at synonymous and nonsynonymous sites." https://lnkd.in/drMDPh6 View in LinkedIn

NEW PARADIGM. "With the discovery of a significant fraction of sites under strong constraint in Drosophila, two things become clear: the role of synonymous sites in the biology of genomes is far greater than the neutral, “silent” part they were once assumed to play; and we still have much to learn about the functionality encoded in genes." https://lnkd.in/dU2Q65U View in LinkedIn