Your Genome is Really, Really, REALLY Complicated

The ninety-five percent of the human genome that doesn't actively code for proteins and was historically known as "junk" DNA is actually vital for regulating the activities of that remaining five percent.

Those are the findings of researchers collaborating on the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements, or ENCODE. The concept isn't exactly new -- quite a few scientists have long felt that evolution didn't keep nine-tenths of the genome around just because it couldn't be bothered to take out the trash -- but the researchers charted the nether regions of our genome with unprecedented detail.

The ENCODE findings, derived from studying a small part of the genome and due to be scaled up in coming years, foreshadow a profound refocusing of our current low-resolution understanding of human genetics. Which isn't to say that earlier genetic research is irrelevant: all those isolated gene findings, those associations of genes with proteins, of mutations with disease, are important pieces of the puzzle. In some cases -- as with Tay-Sachs disease and Huntington's syndrome -- they're extremely useful. But the findings do show just how preliminary our understanding of genetics is.

Since inveigling against genetic reductionism is an old hobby of mine, it's nice to see the genome's complexity getting some overdue recognition. Not that this is big news to some scientists, but it's a revelation to the public at large. Indeed, the news articles surrounding the ENCODE findings capture this well:

BBC: The study, which was carried out on just 1% of our DNA code, challenges the view that genes are the main players in driving our biochemistry.

Boston Globe: Genes, it turns out, may be relatively minor players in genetic processes that are far more subtle and complicated than previously imagined.

Guardian: The findings highlighted how scientists had become so blinded by the importance of genes that the role of other parts of the genome had largely gone unappreciated....

Agence France-Presse: The most detailed probe yet into the workings of the human genome has led scientists to conclude that a cornerstone concept about the chemical code for life is badly flawed.

ABC: The study brings a new dimension to determining both the impact of human genetics in clinical medicine and how humans evolved differently from animals.

For years, the public has been treated to a neverending stream of pronouncements surrounding the potential insights and therapies that will follow from the finding of a gene or two associated with some disease or behavior. Science journalists are, by and large, the people who've carried these findings to the public. This is understandable:
they take their lead from journals and the scientific PR machine. But from the latest round of news articles, it should follow that simplistic narratives of genes and disease are at an end.

Let's see just how long that lasts....

Related Wired coverage here.

Image: Ami Shah*