Comments on: RNA gene separates human brains from chimpanzees

By: freds

freds — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 21:32:17 +0000

NP
I could not get your DOI link to work. Could you link the article another way? Thanks.

By: NP

NP — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 09:57:49 +0000

Based on its sequence, Pollard and Salomo worked out that the RNA molecule transcribed from the HAR1F gene folds into a stable three-dimensional structure. This structure is much the same in other vertebrates that have their own equivalent of HAR1F, but in humans, it’s radically different.

There’s been some more recent work on the structure of the HAR1F RNA transcript in humans and chimpanzees, and their results differs from that of the Pollard et al. paper. The DOI of the paper in which these results were reported is http://dx.doi.org/10.1261/rna.1054608.
It would be really interesting to see more work done on the HAR1F gene which looks at its function in more detail.

By: Ed Yong

Ed Yong — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 01:42:04 +0000

Good stuff. Changed that too. I really appreciate stuff like this, especially for the articles I repost. Helps me write better.

By: RPM

RPM — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 01:08:02 +0000

Ed, it reads much better, and the important story isn’t hidden behind the non-story. But I still have one question — where does this come from:
But 98.5% of our genes do not code for proteins and HAR1F is one of these – it produces an RNA messages that’s never translated.
Does this include tRNA and rRNA genes? 98.5% of our genome does not code for proteins, but a large fraction (perhaps the majority) of that is junk DNA (dead transposable elements). I think the fraction of protein coding sequence relative to all functional sequences is closer to 1/2.

By: Ed Yong

Ed Yong — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 23:11:42 +0000

Ah yes. Missed a spot…

By: windy

windy — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 22:25:10 +0000

Suggestion: replace “far from junk” with “not all junk”

By: Ed Yong

Ed Yong — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 22:12:45 +0000

An excellent point. I have now removed the three or so references to junk DNA from the article – Rich, does it now seem accurate to you?

By: RPM

RPM — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 19:41:56 +0000

Ed, you’ve created a false dichotomy:
But 98.5% of our genes do not code for proteins and HAR1F is one of these. This so-called ‘junk DNA’ produces RNA messages that are never translated.
“Junk DNA” does not mean non-protein coding DNA. It refers to DNA that we know doesn’t have a function (like most of the LINEs and SINEs in the human genome). The HARs wouldn’t be referred to as junk DNA by any reasonable geneticist. As TR Gregory has pointed out, the view you present is created and perpetuated by journalists, not scientists.

By: Ira

Ira — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 19:25:46 +0000

Oh dear, I see some nutty ID guys having a field day with this… I can almost imagine the headlines… “All along, god was in the junk details too!”. heh…
Well, with such great useful junk details, I’d welcome junk god to make more scientific junk discoveries any day. just have him in a lab coat like everyone, we don’t want contaminations in the lab