Over the years, scientists and drug companies seeking genetic control over biological systems have focused their attention on proteins. But that's only one part of the picture: Recently, scientists have been accumulating evidence that non-protein-coding sequences often play the role of conductor in the body's response: it's a kind of "conductome". Now this information is becoming encyclopedic, and it is calling into question everything we thought we knew about the so-called functional genome.
In the following pages, we illustrate the roles of microRNAs - the small non-coding RNAs that regulate gene expression by interfering with messenger RNA function - in biological systems. We also present a controversial new definition of the functional genome from John Mattick, based at the University of Queensland, who argues that so-called junk DNA provides the intricate instructions for regulating the functions of complex organisms.
Here's some of what we know so far.
...
