The study of human dna has advanced considerably in recent years and now, thanks to this, it has been possible to verify that we have 155 new genes They seem to have originated from scratch.
At least that is what recent research in the field of genetics suggests, where, in order to address it properly, it will be necessary to review some essential concepts first.
Each new finding on ancient DNA remains has helped to better understand the evolutionary chain of the human race and other species.
But there is a concept that has prevailed in the scientific community since then: that of “junk DNA”. Which is the name used to designate those genes that do not code for proteins and that were thought to have no function.
More than anything under the theoretical logic that there were no mutations in those regions, so there was no real metabolic impact on the species.
But that idea has been discarded in recent times, thanks to the advancement of DNA study and decoding technology that has now allowed us to discover that key changes have been triggered in these segments.
There are 155 new genes in human DNA
An investigation published by a team from the Alexander Fleming Biomedical Sciences Research Center in the latest issue of the magazine Cell a group of scientists examined the human genome for evidence of the birth of new genes.
Specifically, they looked for so-called “de novo genes” that don’t arise through the usual process, in which genes detect changes or mutations, as cells make copies of their DNA.
De novo genes arise spontaneously from pieces of DNA that do not code for proteins, but can code for molecules that turn genes on and off or perform other functions in the cell.
That is why when de novo genes code for proteins they develop that code “from scratch”, instead of repeating the already existing protein-coding DNA in the cell.
Well, this new study revealed 155 of these human genes created from scratch that code for tiny proteins or microproteins, many of which contained fewer than 100 amino acids, the building blocks of proteins.
These genes are fully human and do not exist in the genome of any other species, not even chimpanzees. Even the first data from the experiments surrounding this finding suggest that at least 44 of these 155 proteins may play an important role in cell growth.
So this consolidates the idea that the concept of “junk DNA” is a thing of the past.
