Write An Essay On Junk Dna

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Introduction:
Susumu Ohno is regularly credited with the origin of the term “Junk DNA” in 1972. He believed that the reason behind such a limited number of genes in an extremely large genome was because said genome could not sustain having large amounts of genes and that areas in between had an important role in doing nothing (ScientificAmerican, 2016). Large portions of this “junk DNA” comes about from transposition of DNA sections to different locations on the genome. These transpositions cause many areas to contain repetitive sequences that did not appear to have an immediate function. It is for this reason that when initial discussion over sequencing the human genome began there were debates about whether to include these sections of genome in the sequencing or to focus on just the protein coding areas. Some thought that sequencing of these areas would added extra time and money to a large project that was already proving costly …show more content…

This is in direct comparison to the Utricularia gibba, a carnivorous bladderwort plant, which was found to actively remove non-coding sections of the genome over generations being left with as low as 3% of their genome being non-coding (Hsu, 2013). Now the main question we must ask is with all the knowledge we currently have on genes and the proteins they encode, where exactly do we stand with annotating the non-coding genome? In 2005 the Encyclopaedia Of DNA Elements (ENCODE) was a project launched by the National Human Genome Research Institute which has developed many new methods for the annotation of the non-coding genome along with a range of other independent researchers which will all be explored in more detail later (Mortlock & Pregizer,

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